Confessional
by Falkesbane
Summary: A tale of Minerva McGonagall -- what would you do if you wanted to encapsulate a life? From her school days at Hogwarts and onward. Chapter 12 up; Minerva takes her breathing time.
1. Poppy's Letter

  
  
This story's first few chapters have been altered from their original versions to fit in canonically with the events of OotP. Standard disclaimers apply; I solemnly swear I am up to no good.   
  
**Confessional**   
Falkesbane   
  
*   
  
**Prologue ~ Poppy's Letter**   
  
_ To:   
Chronicler's Division   
The Office of Magical History   
Pixiesbell Point   
Northumberland   
  
4 May 1999   
  
To whom it may concern:   
  
It has come to my attention via the Daily Prophet that your organization is endeavouring to put together the first history of the rise and fall of Lord Voldemort, and of the two separate wars he began. I have always enjoyed the volumes you put out, and I look forward to this one; however, one aspect of your researching has always bothered me, and that is the fact that you simply fail to put a human turn on events. History is not cold chronology, and I should hope that your rendition of these particular events should breathe life into the persons of Harry Potter, Lord Voldemort, Albus Dumbledore, and all of the others involved – myself counted among them.   
  
You will notice that the owl is carrying a book as well as this letter. It is nothing more than the story of a life – a life which, by your count, must be insignificant when compared to the likes of Potter and Dumbledore. But, as historians, you will know that heroism comes not only in grand, sweeping gestures, but also in thankless work and in iron resolve. You will recognize the name of Minerva McGonagall – vaguely, likely, as one among the scores of dead – and this volume is in her hand. It is hers. And I ask you to take the histories within into consideration when compiling your "official" history of the wars.   
  
The book came into my possession through Albus Dumbledore, who, before he died, bequeathed it to me with this single sentence: It needs to be told. And, after reading it once, twice, then countless times, I must agree with him, even if the writer of the piece herself did not want to tell it to the world. If nothing else, you will concur that it does hold a good deal of historical merit. Admittedly, I do feel a bit guilty giving up a possession belonging to a dearest friend, but, after holding it secret for a little more than a year, I am stilled by the thought that I will someday die and all of this knowledge will die with me, and I pray that she will forgive me for letting out her secrets.   
  
Please. It needs to be told.   
  
Madam Poppy Pomfrey   
Head of Infirmary   
Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry   
  
_


	2. The Term Project

  
  
** One ~ The Term Project**   
  
I do not know what possesses people to want to tell their life stories.   
  
Certainly we are all not so egotistical as to think that our lives hold some great and mystic import, and I can personally attest to the fact that I do not crave fame, nor do I wish to broadcast my histories to the world, yet I am still compelled to write it all down. Perhaps it is my own way of dealing with age, or my own personal immortality – but no, those are wrong, too, and not quite apt for what I want to say. If I am going to do this, I might as well be brutally honest, and, consequently, truthfully, this is nothing more than my confessional.   
  
I am not some horrid sinner, but I believe that everyone needs to be cleansed, in a way, and I have always firmly believed in the ability of the written word to transfer guilts and sorrows and half-forgotten memories from the mind to the paper. Call it a primitive sort of Pensieve, if you will, with no magic and no silvery glittering to mask what lies underneath. Muggles keep diaries – why shouldn't I?   
  
Reasoning aside, I have chosen to do this, and when I choose to do something, I see it through until the end. I am by no means an experienced writer and will probably come off far too teacherly – years of speaking properly have their way with you – and I find I do not know where to begin. The present? I am sitting in my private library, in a hard wooden chair with candles and quills as my companions. There are mirrors here, and I am old in their multiplied reflections – but that won't do at all, for no one wants to hear about the mundane activities of an old woman, not even the old woman herself.   
  
Nor can I begin at the beginning, proper conventions of that Muggle Dickens aside. It is no great significance. I was born to a Muggle family at a farm in the Scottish highlands. I had two parents and a sister called Kitty. I once, quite by accident, turned a sheep into a riding pony because I dearly wanted to have one, and that was when Mum and Dad started to realize that something was not quite right with their older child. Nor can I begin when I got my letter from Hogwarts. I was not an adventurous girl. I spent my time at Hogwarts studying, learning the intricacies of each subject as if each topic were the most fascinating thing in the world – perhaps, to me, they were.   
  
There are times, even now, when I wake up in the morning and expect to see Kitty's sleeping face across from me in the loft, but instead I see my own hands and remember the magical power that I harbour within my own skin. Sometimes I feel as if I have lived a life in a dream world, and that I will, indeed, wake up one day and find I've been late to collect the eggs from the henhouse again – and it seems I shall never finish this if I continue to digress in such a manner.   
  
I will begin in the September of my fifth year at Hogwarts, for there truly is nothing to tell about those first four years except that I absorbed all the knowledge that I could, and that I was lonely. In those times, it was uncommon for Muggle-borns such as myself to be admitted into Hogwarts – there were only three others in my year, and only one of them in Gryffindor, a girl called Myrtle Markels. The wizarding population had not yet been thinned out by war. To make it worse, I was known as not only a Muggle-born but also as a studious girl, and anyone who has ever been a student knows that this is a great atrocity and a curse. I was slightly shunned in my first year, and it grew steadily worse, until, at the beginning of my fifth year, I felt alone and friendless.   
  
My only friend at that point was the teacher of Transfiguration, Professor Albus Dumbledore, who saw in me a proficiency for his subject, and, on my very first day back at Hogwarts, the first day of that fifth year, during the Sorting Ceremony, he came to me and asked me to see him between sessions on my first day of classes. I was curious; I agreed.   
  
The next morning I had to sit through History of Magic before I could go. Though I loved learning, History of Magic was the class I loved least, for two reasons. One, my professor was an elderly and rather monotonous man named Professor Binns, and I constantly thought that it would not be particularly surprising if he simply keeled over one day, mid-lecture. Two, my desk partner was a disagreeable Ravenclaw girl named Olive Hornby, and, to this day, I have no idea how she was sorted in a house known for its academic prowess when all she did was sleep through class every day. True, lectures about the restorative discoveries of Sepulchra the Snub-Nosed back in 1641 certainly aren't the most compelling listening in the world, but there wasn't a single class she was able to sit through – and she snored loudly at that.   
  
At lunch that day, I intended to eat as rapidly as possible, but I was accosted by Myrtle Markels, who was square and dumpy and was well-renowned for her wailing. As a Prefect, it was my duty to listen to the complaints of the other students in Gryffindor, and Myrtle was a particular fan of complaining. "They're horrible!" she exclaimed to me as she grabbed a bit of pastry from one of the trays. "Utterly horrible! Can't something be done?"   
  
"Who is horrible?" I asked. I stared into my shellfish stew and hoped that it would be over quickly; Myrtle loved to whinge about everything from the weather to boys in our year to the unfortunate position of being a Muggle-born witch, and it was because of this last she felt we were somewhat kindred – kindred enough to warrant ceaseless whining, at any rate.   
  
"Ghosts!" she said dramatically. "I was walking down the corridors, minding my own business, when that awful Peeves came down the other way and – and _whooshed_ right through me! And then he laughed that horrid cackling laugh of his and called me four-eyed right in front of Emmet Fawcett!"   
  
Emmet Fawcett was a seventh-year Beater on the Hufflepuff Quidditch team and was generally regarded as extremely handsome if not slightly Squibbish. "Now, Myrtle, it can't have been as bad as all that." Seeing the look on her face, I quickly added a fib. "I'll see Headmaster Dippet about it as soon as I can."   
  
Myrtle nodded fervently. "They really are the most _dreadful_ creatures." She turned away to comment on the quality of the pastries to Cliona Brocklehurst, and I took that as my cue to exit.   
  
Professor Dumbledore was waiting for me in the Transfiguration classroom when I arrived there. If there is one room in Hogwarts I loved, it was the Transfiguration room, and not only because it was the room I ended up teaching in. It was beautiful in a desperate understated manner, with its stone walls and floor, its ancient desks and muted tapestries, not dark but not light enough to shed full brilliance on the room – sufficiently mysterious to seem magical. I approached Dumbledore with uncharacteristic excitement.   
  
"Please sit down, Miss McGonagall," he said quietly.   
  
I did so, atop the desk closest to the teacher's, and waited for him to continue.   
  
"I've summoned you here to ask you if you are interested in conducting a term project in Transfiguration," he explained, all in a rush.   
  
"A term project?" I asked. Most of the students did them in their seventh years, if they intended to take the NEWTs and go on to university, or wanted a high-end job straight out of Hogwarts, but I had not given my subject any consideration. It was too early by years. But of course it would be in Transfiguration – it was Transfiguration I loved best. "What sort of term project?"   
  
"Have you heard of Animagi?"   
  
My heart about stopped when he said that.   
  
"O-Of course I have," I whispered. "Transforming oneself into an animal – but it's not like performing an ordinary transformation with a wand, or even human Transfiguration. It's finding the animal that's within you – if that makes any sense – and being one with it, in a way. Without a wand, even."   
  
"Yes." Dumbledore was nodding.   
  
"What about it, sir?"   
  
"I think you can do it."   
  
"You – you do?" I felt like a stuttering idiot but also felt that this was forgivable, as something astronomical had just happened. "Think I can become an Animagus, that is to say?"   
  
He chuckled. "I do believe you've thought about it, Miss McGonagall."   
  
"How could you tell that?" I was astonished.   
  
"The manner in which you reacted. It was as though," and here his eyes were alight with mischief, "I had just given you the greatest gift in the entire world. Greater than sherbet lemons and chocolate sundrops mixed together, I daresay." When he saw that I was too stunned to say anything, he turned around and picked a small stack of books off of his desk. "I take it you'll say yes," he murmured, still laughing goodnaturedly. He dropped the books into my arms. "Read these. They will get you started."   
  
I looked at the top one – _Finding the Beast Within: Human-to-Animal Transfigurations and You!_ – then looked back up at Dumbledore. "I am grateful for this, don't think otherwise, Professor – but why this? Why offer this to me now? I know I'm a good student, but don't the teachers usually make it their unofficial policy to let the students choose their final projects without any prodding?" I stumbled over the words.   
  
Dumbledore sighed and I knew I had caught him at something. "You are a perceptive girl, Miss McGonagall," he said slowly. "And I will be honest with you. You must not tell anyone of your term project. If anyone asks, you are to tell them that you and I are working on a particular difficult transfiguration that involves altering the cores of wands."   
  
"Professor – why?"   
  
"The Ministry has asked me to train an Animagus," he said plainly. "I do not know why." His eye twitched. "They presume there is some threat emerging that might require the services of one, and the only other two known of at present are an elephant and a sea-horse, both of which are relatively useless for whatever purposes the Ministry intends. Do know that your training will not preclude you to working for the Ministry – that is and will always be your own choice. But they have asked that it be done in secret."   
  
"And they did not tell you why?" I whispered. I felt a bit like a mimic or a small child, with the way I kept asking _why_, but I knew that there was a great mystery here, even then. It was all very unreal.   
  
"No," he admitted. "They asked that I choose a student both talented enough to pull this off and discreet enough to keep it hidden, and you, Miss McGonagall, are the only one of my pupils to fit this description. If you choose not to do this, if you've changed your mind—"   
  
"I haven't," I said firmly, not giving him the chance to finish. "I won't change my mind. I want to do this. You know how much I enjoy Transfiguration and this – well, I suppose this is the ultimate in Transfiguration, isn't it? I wouldn't pass up such an opportunity. I couldn't," I finished with conviction.   
  
"I thought so." He smiled, but for a moment he looked slightly sad. I might have imagined it, really, it was only there for a second, a swift and momentary vanishing of the shine that usually stayed in his eyes. "Well," he said briskly, "you'll be having a class in a few moments, won't you?"   
  
"Yes, I've got Potions."   
  
"Never liked Potions myself. Wasn't very much fun when I took it. Please read the books, Miss McGonagall, and see me after dinner on next Thursday night. In this classroom, of course," he added.   
  
I said goodbye and went off to the Potions dungeon in something of a haze, the books Professor Dumbledore had given me tucked neatly away in my knapsack. To be extra careful, I laid my textbooks atop them. Ordinarily, when I walked through Hogwarts, I tried to look as stern and forbidding as possible so that any wayward students wouldn't run afoul of my Prefect's badge. But I imagine that I was walking rather oddly that day, lost in something of dream. I wondered what my animal would be; I dearly hoped it would something noble like a lion or a stag, and not something distasteful like a rat, or worse, a snake.   
  
I got into Potions and took my seat. Every year since my first, I'd had Potions with Slytherin House, and every year since my first, my lab partner had been the same person. If Olive Hornby was a mild annoyance with snoring in History of Magic, and Myrtle Markels another with her constant complaining, my Potions partner, Tom Riddle, was a full-blown aggravation in a subject I might have otherwise enjoyed thoroughly.   
  
He was another Prefect in my year and privately I thought that Dippet ought to look at more than academic grades when choosing future Prefects – because Tom Riddle was, for lack of a better term, a complete bastard. Certainly I know what became of him, but I wish to treat him in this telling as I knew him at the time – fifteen-year-old Minerva rather than seventy-year-old Minerva. I respect objectivity. And, at the time, I only saw him as a little frightening and very arrogant, and I loathed him.   
  
"You're different today, McGonagall," he said simply.   
  
I kept my eyes steadfastly away from his. There was something about his eyes that I found distinctly disturbing, and I made it a point to keep away from them as much as possible. "How so?" I asked, counting out the seven blessroots we'd need for the Prostasus Potion we'd been assigned to brew.   
  
"You're keeping a secret," he elaborated. His gaze was down on the long desk, as if he intended to burn through the wood with his eyes. He was measuring bluebottle wings, frighteningly meticulous.   
  
I had to fight to hold my hand steady while I hacked into the blessroots. How had he known? But, then again, it is a rare person who is not keeping some sort of secret at any given point in his or her lifetime. "What makes you say that?" I hated my voice; it went a little trembly.   
  
"I can tell by the way you're standing, by the way you're moving," he said, still not looking at me. "Let up on those blessroots. Professor Caldecott said to _shred_ them, not to massacre them."   
  
"They're fine," I snapped, even though I did stop slicing quite so hard. I tipped them into the cauldron and watched as it bubbled up and turned a pinkish colour. I consulted the textbook. "Put in the bluebottle wings," I ordered.   
  
He glared at me sullenly, then did so. Professor Caldecott came hovering over us, clucking in approval. He was a kind and awkward man, with hair the colour of old straw, infinitely preferable to his acidic successor. "Miss McGonagall, could you explain why it is necessary to add blessroots to the Prostasus Potion?"   
  
"Because it counters the effect created by the mixture of the two active ingredients," I said automatically. "Both bluebottle wings and hazelwort juice give the magic boosting effect that the Potion is known for, but create a deadly poison when combined. The essence of the blessroots, as they dissolve, purifies the poison and renders it harmless."   
  
"Five points to Gryffindor." Professor Caldecott was in the habit of circulating around the classroom during each session and springing a question on every student, to give them a chance to earn house points. "Mister Riddle, what other ingredient, besides blessroots, would have the same effect?"   
  
"Unicorn's blood," Riddle said dryly.   
  
"I – I beg your pardon?"   
  
Professor Caldecott was staring at him, and, to be honest, so was I. One simply didn't mention Dark ingredients during everyday classroom activities.   
  
"Unicorn's blood." Riddle spoke as if it were the most natural conversation in the world. "Its purity will remove any ill effects from a brewed potion, including those far more severe than the poison developed in this particular Potion. However, since it is both difficult and illegal to obtain, blessroots are the far better option. In this case."   
  
"Er – yes, quite right. I had been thinking of dryad dust rather than unicorn's blood, but you are correct nonetheless. Five points to Slytherin." Professor Caldecott walked off in a hurry.   
  
"Dabbling in the Dark Arts, Riddle?" I said tartly.   
  
He turned and looked at me then, cold and marbled. "What is it to you?"   
  
There was something very sinister in his expression and I moved away quickly, turning my attention to the potion brewing. "It's done," I whispered, peering into the cauldron – sure enough, it had turned a bright red-rust, almost the colour of blood.   
  
"You try it," Riddle said loftily.   
  
I opened my mouth to snap at him, then shut it again. Carefully, I spooned out a bit of the potion. I was always skilled at making potions in school, but, even in my seventh year, I still got a twinge of nervousness in my stomach whenever I had to test something that could be potentially dangerous. I drank the Prostasus Potion and drew out my hand, trying to think of a harmless spell. After a moment, I cried "_Orchideous_!" and a full bloom of flowers came springing out of the tip of my wand, roses and violets and lilies. They fell all over the desk and onto the floor, coating the area with flowers. "It worked!" I shouted, not caring that Riddle-the-ass was standing right beside me and scowling. "Ordinarily I can only manage about six roses with that spell."   
  
Before Riddle could make another bored comment, Professor Caldecott came over and exclaimed at our potion-making skills, and then class was dismissed. As was customary, with Potions, I slipped out of there as quickly as possible. Not only did I want away from Riddle, but I wanted to take a good look at the Animagi books Professor Dumbledore had given me.   
  
When I got back up to the Gryffindor common room after dinner in the Great Hall, Myrtle ran to me before I could escape up to the dormitory. "M-M-Minerva!" she shouted, and there were tears running down her face – it was all red and blotchy.   
  
I sighed and wondered if this was what being a Prefect would mean for the whole year – constant complaining from overly sensitive Gryffindors. "What is it, Myrtle?"   
  
"That wretched Olive Hornby again!" Her voice, when she was especially hysterical, went all high and reedy. This was one of those times. "She's – she's hideous, that's what she is! She came straight up to me at dinner and told me that I was a great chubby crybaby and that I ought to just throw myself into a river because no boy will ever love me and it'll just be awful for the rest of my life!"   
  
"Myrtle," I said crossly, "you and I know both know that Olive Hornby is a great twittering idiot more concerned with pimple-concealment charms than with her schoolwork. How she ever got into Ravenclaw, I'll never know—" I cut myself off. It was bad form to insult those in other houses, even if they weren't around to hear me. "Listen, you aren't any more of a great crybaby than she—" I had to stop again.   
  
"But she teases me all the time! Oh, it makes me _so_ miserable, and you're a Prefect, you must be able to do something, Minerva." Myrtle was wiping her nose with the back of her hand in a rather unattractive gesture. "I can't live like this!" she added melodramatically.   
  
"All right." I was suddenly very sorry for her, and I placed my hands over her shoulders, then brought them down to touch her comfortingly. I myself was not a gorgeous girl, but I was not ugly, only plain, and, though it is rude to say it, Myrtle Markels was unattractive, squarely built and too tall and blocky to be considered even remotely feminine. I have seen too many times, both as a student and as a teacher, the pains that girls who are not beautiful endure in school. "I'll speak to her at lunch, tomorrow."   
  
Myrtle cheered considerably. "Don't tell her I sent you."   
  
"I'll tell her that there have been complaints, that's all."   
  
"There have been complaints," Myrtle repeated in a whisper. "Oh, that's _ clever_, Minerva, no wonder they've made you a Prefect." She appeared to think at length. "Listen – do you want to come into Hogsmeade with Cliona and Cora and I on Saturday? We're going to go into Gladrags and look at the new winter robes."   
  
"Huh?" Although the prospect of examining new winter robes did little to stir my interest, I was shocked that another girl had actually asked me over to Hogsmeade, even if it was Myrtle Markels. All the times I had been I had gone alone, and there were places I wanted to see but didn't dare brave by myself, like the Three Broomsticks or Zonko's, the new joke-shop. "Er – all right then, Myrtle."   
  
"Great!" Myrtle said. "And you be sure to make that awful Olive squirm tomorrow!"   
  
I bit back a reprimand; it wasn't my position to make people squirm, but I thought better of saying this to Myrtle. "Yes," I said distantly as I finally managed to ascend the staircase to the girls' dormitory. That night, I managed to get through two chapters of _Finding the Beast Within_ – with my curtains drawn around my bed, of course – and I fell asleep with my school clothes still on, and the book pressed into my face.   
  



	3. A Trip to Hogsmeade

**   
  
Two ~ A Trip to Hogsmeade**   
  
My confrontation with Olive Hornby did not go well, to make a grievous understatement.   
  
After coming out of class that morning, I went to lunch hoping that Myrtle Markels would have forgotten about the entire incident, but I had no such good fortune, for Myrtle beamed at me as soon as I strode into the Great Hall, and probably would have yelled a greeting if not for the sandwich occupying her mouth. I had a sudden and almost irresistible urge to rip off my Prefect's badge and shove it into my robes, as though this could somehow absolve me of any responsibility.   
  
I nodded at Myrtle – perfunctorily – and made my way over to the Ravenclaw table, where Olive was sitting and moaning to her friends about how fattening junket was and how she'd have to come up with a charm to prevent it from having too much of an ill effect on her waistline. I stepped up behind her and coughed. She turned around. "Olive, could I have a word with you in private?"   
  
"Minerva, what—" She stopped, and her gaze swung round to where Myrtle was sitting at the Gryffindor table. "_You_!" she shrieked, pointing one long finger at the other girl. "You little coward, going off to your house Prefect instead of coming to talk to me yourself!" I saw fury flashing in her eyes and instinctively caved back a little, shocked at the swiftness of her reaction, as she rose up out of her chair and shrieked a few more choice words at Myrtle; heads from the other tables were beginning to turn.   
  
Myrtle, for her part, was already up on unsteady legs. Her messy, curly hair bobbed around her face as if conscious of her anger. "What did you expect me to do, you – you vile little snipe! All you ever do is make fun of me and say awful things about me to all your friends!" She wasn't looking at Olive, though; she was looking at the Hufflepuff table where Emmet Fawcett was laughing quite rudely. In that instant I felt completely horrible for her. I didn't know then, but she must have watched him for a long time, and there he was, laughing at her. I believe he grew up to do low-level administrative duties for the Kwikspell Corporation, though I highly doubt this would have calmed Myrtle if she had known.   
  
Olive had begun ranting at me. "Minerva, you simply don't understand, she's just so _creepy_ – she's always watching my friends and I in the library! I'll catch her peering round a stack of books and then she'll whisk off and act like nothing happened!"   
  
"That's a lie!" Myrtle cried passionately. "It's a lie you made up to make it look like you aren't such a – such a horrible bitch!"   
  
A collective gasp rose up from the Great Hall. It may be common for the students of today to swear, but, back then, it was something of a surprising crime. My own heart was beating rapidly; I could feel Headmaster Dippet's eyes burning into the back of my head, waiting for me to deal with this. But before I could take any points off Myrtle or even open my mouth, Olive had marched right up into Myrtle's face.   
  
"I will not be insulted in such a manner," Olive seethed, quietly enough for only herself, Myrtle, and me to hear. "Especially not by a Muggle-born – pardon me, two Muggle-borns," she amended, looking directly at me.   
  
I blinked. It was time to act. Headmaster Dippet was still watching the argument unfold. "Both of you. Follow me into the corridor." I yanked on Myrtle's sleeve rather forcefully and both girls came after me into the hallway – not because of deference to my authority, I suspect, but because both wanted to continue the fight uninterrupted. When we were safely away from the Great Hall and its spectators, I turned to them both and put on my severest expression. "Ten points from each of your houses for causing a disruption and – and for insults unbecoming of proper witches."   
  
"Really—"   
  
"It is my duty to resolve conflicts, but not to police over squalling children," I said fiercely.   
  
"That's so unfair!" Olive cried.   
  
I did not see how it was unfair – I had taken the same amount of points from both Gryffindor and Ravenclaw – but I did not say this. "Be that as it may, you have conducted yourself badly and you will suffer the repercussions." My language had an odd habit of going formal whenever I played the role of Prefect.   
  
"It's not my fault she's a whiny cry-baby!"   
  
"_I'm_ a whiny cry-baby! Listen to _you_!"   
  
Then they were shouting again, right in the middle of the corridor. I didn't dare stop them; both girls looked about ready to rip the other's hair out and I didn't want to be caught in the crossfire. I could only stand there and stare and wait. I have always been baffled by how women fight. And then there was a hand clamped down on my shoulder, dismissively pushing me out of the way. I turned to look.   
  
It was Tom Riddle, as if the situation had somehow demanded to get much worse. I glared at his profile. He didn't seem to notice. Both Olive and Myrtle quieted instantly.   
  
"What's going on here?" Riddle asked quietly. There was always a quality to his voice I couldn't quite describe; the best adjective I can come up with is _serpentine_ and even that doesn't seem right.   
  
"We were just having a friendly spat, weren't we, Myrtle?" Olive whispered, staring at Riddle as though he had somehow compelled her to do so.   
  
"Yes, that's all," Myrtle said breathily.   
  
"It looked like more." He moved his gaze from Olive to Myrtle, then back onto me. "Especially with a Prefect standing right here – officiating, is it, McGonagall? Playing referee?"   
  
"I took points from them both," I snapped at him. "There is nothing more I can do." Abruptly, I could stand there no longer, so I shouldered my bookbag and set off down the hall to Arithmancy; at that moment, I loathed all three of them. Myrtle Markels, Olive Hornby, and especially Tom Riddle. Myrtle I could sympathize with slightly because only the most horrid of people use parentage as an insult, but she had been the one who'd got me into the argument into the first place and so she did not escape my anger. Olive Hornby really was horrid and I knew then that I preferred her asleep on the desk with drool coming from her mouth rather than vitriol – and Riddle, I hated him the most, with the way one cruel gaze could undermine anything I had done. He had no right – absolutely no right – to take away my authority.   
  
"It's not as though I could've done anything more," I muttered to myself when they were all out of earshot. "I can't exactly hex the sparring – I _should_ be allowed to hex the sparring._ Furnunculus_! Take that, Olive Hornby!" This cheered me slightly.   
  
I came out of class still seething a little and, instead of risking more ridiculous drama at dinner, I curled up onto my bed and read. I had hidden a box of Muggle toffees mailed to me by Kitty (for my fifteenth birthday, and I was thankful for sisters because Mum and Dad would never have sent sweets) under my bed, and I ate those. There were so many things about Animagi that I didn't know. The transformations are often excruciating at first, for example, and it takes a great deal of time and practice to be able to transform without crying out in pain beforehand. I wondered, briefly, where Professor Dumbledore had come into the possession of such books. I found that I was anticipating the next Thursday with agonizing excitement and I almost didn't hear the other girls coming into the dormitory. I was barely able to shove the book under my pillow before Cliona Brocklehurst and Cora Turpin pulled the curtains aside.   
  
"We saw what happened in the Great Hall at lunch!" Cora said. "Myrtle said you took house points off that Olive – good on you, she's such a bully! Of course, you took them off Myrtle, too, but Myrtle's used to it by now. She never gets any of Professor Caldecott's questions right."   
  
Cora was a short fifth-year girl with blonde hair and a wide, unassuming face; rumours around school indicated that she was taking almost all remedial classes and had received zero OWLS on her first attempt, and this seemed true enough, as she was old enough to be in her seventh year. Her general compatriot, Cliona, was a lanky, athletic girl, the only girl on any of the Quidditch teams, with dark hair and eyes. "Myrtle also said you're coming to Hogsmeade with us tomorrow – is this true?"   
  
"She asked – er – if you don't want me to go, that's perfectly fine."   
  
"Oh, don't be ridiculous, Minerva," Cliona said, leaning in a little, to whisper to me. She had an easy sort of grin that made you want to smile back at her. "I know you think all the girls don't like you, and you're right about that, I suppose. They don't like me either." She made a face. "I probably stink too much from Quidditch practice for their delicate noses to tolerate."   
  
"No, no," Cora said earnestly, "they're just jealous that you could sneak about in the boys' changing rooms if you wanted to."   
  
Cliona wrinkled her nose. "As if I'd want to! What a thought!"   
  
I laughed in spite of myself. "All right then, I'll go."   
  
"Brilliant!" Cliona said. "We'll see you in the morning."   
  
It seemed like very little, but I lay down and thought about this for a long time after they'd let me alone. Was it only because I had braved confronting Olive Hornby, a girl who had doubtlessly teased each one of them? But that couldn't have been the reason because I had only being doing my duty as a Prefect, nothing more. I never really knew. I suppose they saw in me another lonely girl. Cliona was shunned for her boyishness, Cora for her perceived stupidity, and Myrtle simply for being Myrtle. At the time, I considered Professor Dumbledore my only friend, and even that was foolish because he only treated me in a kind, teacherly manner – the way a professor treats a favourite pupil. I certainly couldn't go gallivanting round Hogsmeade with the Transfiguration teacher.   
  
Myrtle woke me up in the morning, predictably enough. "Minerva! That – that hairy boy has brought his creatures up into the common room again! Bowtruckles, the hugest ones I ever saw!"   
  
One of the most unpleasant things to wake up to is certainly the image of Myrtle's eyes, large and swimmy behind her spectacles, pushed up near your face. "There's nothing I can do about Hagrid, Myrtle. He's got special permission to work with his – animals – up here as long as they're not harmful ones and as long as he cleans up after them."   
  
"Oh."   
  
"Hagrid's harmless, anyhow," I assured her. "He knows how to control those beasts better than any of us could."   
  
Myrtle goggled. "I know, but it shouldn't be _allowed_," she said sulkily. Then, after a pause: "Well, get dressed then, we want to get to Hogsmeade early." She sprang away, presumably to get her own autumn coat on.   
  
For the first time in my life, I wondered what to wear. Ordinarily, I had no problem with the utilitarian Hogwarts uniform, or my robes, but neither seemed very appropriate for Hogsmeade. I put on my school blouse and a tartan skirt Mum had sent me from home; Mum was born a MacDuff and had a great deal of pride in their clan tartan, and made me wear it even though I was born a McGonagall. I had a navy duffel coat that had belonged to Mum as well; I took this, too.   
  
Three hours later, I was simply amazed at how much time Myrtle and Cora could spend in Gladrags. Cliona and I were sitting boredly in the chairs usually reserved for exhausted beaus and husbands while Cora tried on a set of yellow summer robes. "I know I can't wear them for a year at least," Cora confessed, "but aren't they just lovely?"   
  
"Gorgeous," Cliona said, without looking up.   
  
"They're on half price, too, Cora," Myrtle said, awed. "I think you ought to buy them. And take a look at this – Beautiful Skin Potion. I wonder if it really works?"   
  
"I heard it does – ooh, it's on sale as well!"   
  
Cliona looked about ready to tear her hair out. "Who _cares_?" she moaned. "This is torture! Buy the robes! Buy the potion! They've got a shipment of new broomsticks in at Dervish and Banges and I don't want to be the only one on the team who hasn't seen that new Cleansweep model! I'll look like a raging idiot if they all go off chatting about it and I just stand there gap-mouthed!"   
  
"Oh, fine," Cora said, smiling as though she were accustomed to Cliona's impatience, and she went to the counter to purchase the summer robes.   
  
After a visit to Dervish and Banges that took an hour long, with all Cliona's fawning over a high-quality servicing kit, we went to Honeydukes, where Myrtle bought fudge and we split in it in fours, and then to Zonko's where Cliona bought a pad of Emergency Exploding Notepaper ("For when Cora passes me notes about Emmet Fawcett in Astronomy," Cliona chuckled, to which Cora shouted an indignant "I do no such thing!") and four Pepper Imps, which we ate on the way out. We emerged from the store shrieking with delighted agony – I had never done such a thing, squealed in such a girlish way, and, surprisingly, it was not unpleasant. When Myrtle bent double and coughed a spray of fire onto the cobblestones of the street, Cora suggested, mid-wheeze, that we ought to get something to drink.   
  
I couldn't reply for fear of breathing fire all over her, so I just followed along.   
  
The Three Broomsticks was another place I'd never been, and it was warm and inviting, rustic with its green-brown walls and its wooden floors and tables. We found a table near where the fire was blazing happily; we took off our autumn coats and looped them around the chairs. A pretty witch came over to take our order – four butterbeers, of course – and Cora leaned forward conspiratorially. "Look over there, Myrtle, it's Emmet Fawcett with the rest of the Hufflepuff Quidditch team."   
  
"Oh, hell," Cliona said.   
  
I chanced a glance at Emmet; he seemed to be trying to convince the witch serving drinks that he was old enough for a bottle of Ogden's Old. Niall MacDougal, the Hufflepuff Seeker, was looking on hopefully. I watched for a second longer than necessary; while I didn't care much for Emmet, Niall was very handsome. Of course, I said nothing of these thoughts.   
  
"I like how he's got his hair tousled," Cora remarked.   
  
Cliona snorted. "I don't understand you. Either of you. I whacked that great babyish lunk in the arm with a Bludger last year and he acted like I'd broken it." She rolled her eyes. "Truthfully, I'd only _fractured_ the wretched thing – I wonder how he'd have reacted if I'd injured his precious face instead?"   
  
"Really, what does that matter?" Cora argued. "I'd take care of his injured arm for him, anyway." The witch came with our butterbeers; I took a sip and marvelled at the pleasant warm fizziness uncurling in my stomach. "You shouldn't have hit him, anyway."   
  
"Like hell I shouldn't have; it's part of the ruddy game!"   
  
Cora frowned. "Don't curse," she admonished softly. She faced Myrtle, who was looking quite dismal as she stared into her mug of butterbeer. "You agree with me, don't you, Myrtle?"   
  
"He laughed at me," she whispered. Even when she was speaking in hushed tones, her voice never lost its ghostly, airy quality.   
  
"When was this?"   
  
"Yesterday morning, when Minerva went to talk to Olive, and Olive started shouting at me. I looked over at Emmet and he was laughing at me like I was some sort of funny little creature." She frowned and I could see tears starting to form in her eyes. I watched with a strange sort of fascination; I wasn't much of a crier myself and feminine weeping wasn't all that familiar to me. Mum once told me, when I fell off a horse, that sitting and crying about my bruised arse wasn't going to de-bruise it, and that had been that.   
  
Cliona was clapping Myrtle on the back, comforting her. "He's a bad Beater anyhow. Really quite sulky, if you ask me."   
  
Cora seemed unconvinced. "Maybe was laughing at Olive Hornby, Myrtle, and not at you. Olive _did_ get rather red in the face; she looked like an overstuffed tomato. I would have laughed at her myself if she weren't so vicious."   
  
"No, I could tell," Myrtle said with finality. "I don't like him anymore. I'm done with him." Her fingers curled around the handle of her mug and tapped against the glass for a minute, and she looked down at her shoes on the rough wooden floor. "It's foolish, really, that I should watch him all the time. And besides – oh, no, never mind."   
  
"Ah, but you can't do that!" Cora said with a wink. "And _besides_?" she prodded.   
  
"And besides – well, I like someone else." Myrtle had gone very red in the face, and she took off her thick glasses to dab at the lenses, even though they were perfectly clean.   
  
"Who?" Cliona was trying her best to seem disinterested. I was content to sit and sip my drink and listen to the conversation float around me; I was rarely privy to this sort of girl talk.   
  
"I can't tell you, you'll just make jokes about it," Myrtle said stubbornly.   
  
"We're your friends, Myrtle," Cora said dramatically, pounding her mug down on the table for effect. "Your friends! You've just got to tell us; you can't go on keeping secrets from us because everyone knows that keeping secrets'll just eat you up in the end." She finished with a satisfied smirk.   
  
"Oh, fine," Myrtle said. "It's – it's Tom Riddle."   
  
I choked on my butterbeer and nearly spat all over the table. "_Tom Riddle_?" I repeated, incredulous. "Tom Riddle! The Slytherin? The same one I've got Potions with? You've gone mad, Myrtle, he's the worst bastard I've ever met!"   
  
"But look how he got Olive and I to stop fighting," she persisted. "A few words and that was that. It was so very – _powerful_." She gave a little shiver. "And he does have the most lovely eyes."   
  
I stared at her, feeling cold. "They're – they're unsettling."   
  
Myrtle shook her head. "Well, I think you're wrong, Minerva," she said airily. "I think he's wonderful, so much better than Emmet. And you don't see him sitting in the Three Broomsticks and bothering the waitwitches – I just bet he's in the library, studying for his OWLs."   
  
"How dreadfully boring of him," Cliona said dryly.   
  
"I'll say," Cora agreed. "Minerva, I've always wanted to pick your brain a bit – maybe it'll rub off on me," she said sheepishly, expertly changing the subject – probably because of the miserable look on Myrtle's face. "Where were you born? Where did you grow up? Were your parents flabbergasted at the Hogwarts letter?"   
  
"Mine were," Myrtle interjected.   
  
So I put Riddle into the back of my mind and told them everything about me, how I was born on the farm and my father had given a chicken to the midwife as payment, how Kitty came along shortly after, how I'd had to wake up early to do my chores before school – they were particularly fascinated with my Muggle school, which only had five other children besides Kitty and I, all of us stuffed into one room – and everything else. It was strangely relieving, explaining at all like that, as if the fact that my family were all Muggles didn't matter. Of course, Myrtle's were all Muggles, too.   
  
I thought about Myrtle's fixation with Riddle long after; I was so preoccupied and exhausted from the day that I didn't even consider getting back at my term project that night. It is difficult for me to remember how I felt about it then, knowing what I know at present, because I did not know it then. I believe I was more pitying of Myrtle than anything else; she was destined to choose objects of affection that looked on her as if she were an insect or something equally worthless. I think I wanted for Myrtle to have someone to love her for all her faults and indiscretions, but I know that never happened, and I grieve for that even more than I grieve for her – but I get ahead of myself.   
  
It is lonely here in my rooms now. The candles are burning down and suddenly I miss them, all three of them, Cliona Brocklehurst, Cora Turpin, and Myrtle Markels. From that day onward, we were friends of a sort – a coterie of outcasts that Hogwarts didn't quite know what to make of. I was not as close as most friends are, as it was very necessary to isolate myself in that year, yet there were so many times I laughed with them – Hogsmeade weekends, games of Gobstones in the common room, and even after that year I laughed with them, albeit halfheartedly, when there were only three of us left.   
  



	4. A Breakthrough

  
  
** Three ~ A Breakthrough**   
  
Next Thursday came with little ceremony. I spent most of that time reading through my books and doing the small bit of homework that always comes in September. In History of Magic, Olive Hornby still slept and ignored me, for which I was grateful; in Potions, Riddle still annoyed me, but I was ever-conscious of Myrtle's mooning eyes towards our table, and I gritted my teeth through this. My stomach was fluttering a little as I climbed the stairs up to the Transfiguration classroom. Again, Professor Dumbledore was there before I arrived.   
  
"I have been thinking, Miss McGonagall," he said, as he emptied packet after packet of sugar into his tea, "that you should be allowed full access to this room if you're to be working in here often. I had a key made for you. I do not think I need to tell you to exercise discretion when you are using it."   
  
He passed me the small silvery key, which I swiftly pocketed. "Thank you," I said, trying to sound appropriately gracious and grown-up and instead sounding like a giddy little girl; the prospect of having the Transfiguration classroom all to myself was an exciting one, and the uses of it would be endless. "Could I practice anytime, then?"   
  
"Anytime within reason – meaning no sitting in here at four in the morning." His eyes twinkled. "I wouldn't have to warn any other student against too much studying, but you, Miss McGonagall—" He made a funny, beseeching gesture. "Would you like some tea?"   
  
"Yes, please. Er – no sugar."   
  
He laughed at that and poured me a cup, then slid it to me over his desk on a saucer. "I saw the little spat in the Great Hall last week," he said casually. "You handled yourself quite expertly. I remember trying to break up a rather heated fight between Aberforth – that's my brother – and the neighbour's cat, and I did not fare nearly as well as you did. I came out with scratches all over my face."   
  
"From the cat," I surmised, squirming in my seat. I didn't really want to talk about this, as I was still a touch annoyed about the entire incident.   
  
"No, from Aberforth." Professor Dumbledore scratched at his beard, looking pensive. "He always was a little off, I'd say." Sensing my anxiety, he took a sip of tea and continued, "Have you had a chance to look at those books?"   
  
"Oh, yes, I read them all already – there're so many things I didn't know about Transfiguration! I think it'll quite help me with my ordinary class homework, too, like all those things about the foundations of Transfiguration and whatnot, those were brilliant."   
  
He smiled. Albus Dumbledore, in spite of his age, has always smiled like a child, with his whole heart and a world of wonder at his fingertips. "So you've read all about the process, then?"   
  
"Yes." There were so many things I wanted to ask, the first of them being _why_ the Ministry was allowing a fifth-year student who didn't even have a bloody Apparition licence to do this, but I held my tongue and asked a tamer question. "I am worried about the incantations. My accent always seems to mangle up the Latin." I looked down at my hands. "But I'm excited to begin."   
  
I raised my eyes after a pause. Professor Dumbledore was watching me with a strangely guarded expression on his face, indescribable, as though he were somehow sad, or afraid.   
  
"Sir, is there something wrong?"   
  
He blinked. "No, no, Miss McGonagall. You may start practicing the incantations at your leisure. I know you'll be vigilant about it. I'm afraid that, if this to count as a graded project, you'll have to write progress reports for me." He wrinkled his nose at this mention of schoolwork.   
  
"I don't mind." I honestly didn't.   
  
"And – remember about the secret."   
  
"Of course," I said, slightly offended that he felt the need to remind me.   
  
It all got to be quite monotonous after that. There was a Quidditch match the next week, and I took a bit of time to watch Gryffindor flatten Hufflepuff – Cora, Myrtle, and I all tucked into the stands with our Gryffindor scarves round our necks. Cliona was up on her broomstick, and she lodged another Bludger at Emmet, then gave a very unashamed thumbs-up to Myrtle (who hid her head in embarrassment). I grinned at her and went back to covertly watching Niall MacDougal. I have always loved watching Quidditch; even now, I adore a good clean fast-paced game. But besides that I didn't do very much – I went to all my classes, ate all my meals, took points off of first-years running in the corridors, and spent most of my free time locked up the Transfiguration room, trying to establish that connection.   
  
I can't know how many times I whispered that incantation, changed the cadence of the words ever-so-slightly in hopes that one correct pronunciation would do it; I read the words over and over to find what I had done wrong. I knew, of course, that the problem wasn't in how I recited the spell. It was because I was not ready. There have been witches and wizards who have said the words for decades and felt nothing, but I still felt like a failure even after a month. Transfiguration was my best subject. I felt I should have been better.   
  
I tried thinking of nothing when I said the words, in that sweet, sibilant Latin, and then I tried thinking of everything and anything, of animals I'd have liked to be, of magic spells I'd half-forgotten, of how to transfigure a quill into an inkbottle. I tried saying them when sitting, when standing, when reclining; I tried whispering and speaking and shouting as much as I dared in the empty room; I tried in morning, at noon, at night. None of it worked, yet I persisted through each night as though possessed by the urge to feel something – _anything_ – as the result of my labours.   
  
And then – I had been sitting on the floor of the classroom sometime in the middle of October, legs crossed, books strewn all about me – my mind spun and I fell back and I wasn't even aware of how my head clunked against the stone because I felt _something_ uncoil itself within my mind, quick and eely, foreign but harmless, as though just coming out to say hello. I gasped and it was gone as suddenly as it had come, and I was abruptly lying flat on my back in the classroom and laughing. It had been painful and incredible and wonderful at once. I couldn't move for a good five minutes, so I just stayed there, half-awed and numb from the shock of it, and then when I found my legs again I sat up and opened one of the books, feverishly finding a set of words I'd read a dozen times before:   
  
_ The first successful incantation and subsequent connection with the catalogue of beasts, so to speak, is often brief, characterized by a sharp flare of intense pain. Afterwards, the attempts typically become less painful and increasingly longer over time. It is only with vigorous practice that the connection can sustain itself long enough for the recipient to be able to identify the Animagus form to which he or she is bound. _  
  
That was enough for me. With my hands pressed to my head (where most of the pain had flared up the first time), I recited the spell again. The intensity of it returned, and I felt the same sensation again, an uncoiling, then a stretching, then the sense of something languid and sinewy moving about in my head. I gaped and the connection broke. I looked at the words again – the _catalogue_ of beasts – and abruptly realized that this was what I had felt, first something snakelike, then something like a great panther waking from sleep in the jungle, then something quite like a lazy, playful, spidery monkey. The animals, for lack of better words, were coming out to assess me.   
  
With every practice after that, it grew better, longer, and each time I could sense new animals emerging from the woodwork. The books said that one would choose me, and I was growing impatient, for all they seemed to do was lie about, taking their turns examining the inside of my head. I spent long hours in that classroom, and my absences from the common room were noticeable enough for Myrtle to comment on.   
  
"Where _have_ you been going all this time?" she asked innocently one day, watching Cora and I play chess after dinner (Cora was laughably bad at it, so I let her win about half the time because I liked to play and neither Cliona nor Myrtle ever agreed to it).   
  
"I've been studying. Studying in the library." I tried to say this as casually as possible, and struck down one of Cora's pawns. She didn't get a chance to reply because Hagrid had just entered the Great Hall carrying a squabbling, irate pixie, which sent Myrtle off on an overblown screaming fit.   
  
"Er, sorry there, Miss Myrtle, I bin tryin' to calm 'im down. Thought maybe I could bring 'em up and sing to him, maybe feed 'im a bit o' bread…" Hagrid trailed off as she went flying out of the room, then shrugged and sat down at the end of the table to coo at the rather rabid-looking pixie, which was trying and failing to get itself out of Hagrid's iron grasp.   
  
"Myrtle thinks you've got a secret beau," Cora whispered after the diversion.   
  
I had to laugh aloud at that. "Tell her she's wrong – unless she counts my running off to hidden passageways with Emmet Fawcett, getting drunk on Firewhiskey," I added jokingly, taking another of Cora's pawns (which squealed in protest). After the first Hogsmeade weekend, poking fun at Emmet was one of our hobbies. "I'm just worried about the OWLs is all. If I do badly, I might not be able to come back."   
  
She raised an eyebrow. "_You're_ worried? This'll be my third go."   
  
The next day, I got a letter from my mum asking if I'd be home for Christmas, and one from Kitty about all the people from the city they had staying at the farm because of the Muggle war. I never got to know much about what happened in the Muggle world, and I didn't think it was nearly so bad, but apparently there were loads of evacuees staying in the cottage and in the farmhouse's extra bedrooms. I wrote back to tell them that I would be coming and that I didn't mind sharing with Kitty, like we did when we little and the crops were big enough to house the hired farmhands who had stayed in the other rooms.   
  
On the first of December, it snowed, and almost all of Gryffindor, as well as a big portion of Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw – and even a few brave Slytherins – trekked out on the grounds to have a very large and very disorganized snowball fight. I tried to do my job as a Prefect with Cliona, though I couldn't stop laughing because it was so cold and lovely and my cheeks were red with chill and wonderful exhaustion. "You've got to stop hitting the first-years so hard!" I shouted to her.   
  
"Sorry, Minerva, but they're far too weak to fight back! It's marvellous!" And she lobbed a snowball at Olive Hornby, who cried out with indignation. Cliona came jogging over to me. "That better, oh hallowed Missus Prefect?"   
  
I glanced at Olive, who was looking at us murderously and wiping the snow from her face. "Much. Ten points to Gryffindor for a well-timed hit."   
  
"I wish you were serious," she said cheerfully, and sprinted away to avoid a snowball from Hagrid, round and roughly the size of a boulder. It hit me on the leg and I stumbled backward.   
  
"Sorry there, Miss Minerva!" Hagrid yelled anxiously. "Meant ter get back at Miss Cliona!" He pointed to a red mark on his face that could only have been made by a snowball.   
  
I retaliated by whipping a handful of snow at him, and laughed as I had to dodge another giant-sized snowball. "You're a menace, Hagrid," I taunted, and I had to dive into the ground to avoid yet another hit. I rolled over, half-coated in sticky snow, and spotted a solitary figure over by the Herbology greenhouses. I squinted and wiped the snow from eyes. It was Riddle, with his arms folded neatly over his chest and what looked to be a very priggish, very disapproving expression on his face. I frowned – why didn't he just join in, or leave if he didn't like it?   
  
There was a Hogsmeade trip the weekend before the winter exams, presumably for students to alleviate stress, and I allowed myself to be dragged along in spite of wanting to study because I wanted to buy Christmas gifts. I slipped away from the other girls long enough to buy them each a gift. I got more Exploding Notepaper for Cora, as she kept nicking Cliona's; for Cliona herself, I bought a book on famous Beater techniques and tricks. Myrtle was the most difficult, and, after an hour of searching, I turned up with a box of miscellaneous beauty potions, of which Myrtle was an avid consumer.   
  
I met back up with them in Honeydukes and bought wizarding sweets for my family; Kitty had an endless fascination with them, so I always gave her different kinds every time I visited home. Her particular favourite were sugar quills, and she had more than once expressed her annoyance that they did not come in plain, unobtrusive pencil form for her to use in her school.   
  
Myrtle went up to the counter with me, with boxes of things for her Muggle siblings, who were just as enthusiastic about our sweets as Kitty was. Cliona was looking at her selections slyly. "Myrtle, you've only got three brothers and one sister. Why've you got five boxes of Chocoballs?"   
  
Myrtle went a brilliant shade of red. "You – er – you noticed. Er – um – one is for…" The rest of the sentence was mumbled incoherently into the sleeve of her robes.   
  
"For who?"   
  
Her large, bespectacled eyes darted around, to make sure no one else was listening but Cliona and myself; Cora was off sorting through the large barrels of Fizzing Whizzbees to pick out only the bumbleberry ones. "It's for Tom Riddle. Don't you laugh at me – everyone knows he grew up in an orphanage because his mum died, he must never get Christmas presents. And I'm not going to put my name on it," she added hastily.   
  
I cut off whatever rude thing Cliona was going to say by jabbing her in the ribs with my elbow and effectively shutting her mouth. "Myrtle," I said carefully, "I'm not sure if he is going to appreciate it as much as you think he might."   
  
"Why wouldn't he?" she asked petulantly. "Why, I certainly would be overjoyed if I got a gift from a secret admirer, especially if there wasn't anyone else around to send me things for Christmas. He stays at Hogwarts every year, did you know that? Every holiday!"   
  
Cliona was aghast. "Oh, no, Myrtle, you're not going to write that it's from a secret admirer, are you? That's so horribly soppy."   
  
"It is not – it's a kind gesture."   
  
"It's soppy," Cliona repeated.   
  
Cora came over with a bag full of bumbleberry Whizzbees. "What's going on?"   
  
"Nothing," I said firmly, urging Myrtle towards the counter and giving Cliona a warning look. I didn't know why, but I wanted to let the subject drop. Myrtle shot me a grateful glance; she, too, was embarrassed by the conversation.   
  
In the next Potions class Riddle and I had a joint exam to complete – a Pepper-Up Potion, a Deflating Draught, and an Elixir of Circe all in one period. We had to work quickly, so we said nearly nothing to each other – which was not so different from any other class – but I watched him from the corner of my eye, wondering if it had been the Muggle orphanage that had given him such a vile personality. But I knew of other wizards who had grown up without the care of their magical parents, and none were so acidic; Riddle was an enigma.   
  
"You're working slowly, McGonagall," he whispered to me.   
  
This angered me; I was good at Potions, better than most of the class, and he knew it just as well as I did. "Would you rather I switch partners?" I hissed back, through gritted teeth. He didn't say anything back and I went back to stirring up the Deflating Draught, feeling instantly sorry for even bothering to wonder about him.   
  
At any rate, I was glad of my mum and dad, and I was quite anxious to get home for the holidays. A part of me missed living as a Muggle, putting out biscuits for Father Christmas and listening for reindeer on the roof of the house with Kitty snuggled next to me. We never did hear them, but both of us always swore up and down that we had when the other had been asleep. And then waking up Christmas morning and opening gifts, us in our pajamas and Dad in his ratty old plaid robe, then going to Muggle church and singing to the hymns, then feeding the horses apples for holiday treats.   
  
I packed up some of my clothes and the gifts for my family the night before I was to take the train home, and then I exchanged presents in the common room. All three girls were delighted with what I gave them. I'd never received gifts from housemates any other year, but Cliona gave me a new Gryffindor scarf to replace the one I'd had since first year ("I've got to have my fans looking sharp," she joked), and Cora gave me a book of very complicated spells ("Perhaps you could teach them to me after you learn them," she said hopefully). Myrtle presented me with a very large package of sweets (which were later annihilated by Kitty and I and two of the evacuated children).   
  
The professors and a few of the students were singing carols down in the Great Hall, and we went down to join them, adding four very off-key voices to an ever-growing chorus. Hagrid was there, and, in a fit of mischieviousness, I caught him under the mistletoe and kissed him on the cheek, then chuckled as he'd stuttered with embarrassment. I'd grown to know him better over the term, since I'd been sent by my housemates more than once to ask him to keep his more violent or repulsive beasts away from the other students.   
  
Winter has always been my favourite time of year. I love snow, and how amusing everyone looks all bundled up in winter robes, and the warmth of fires inside while the wind rages outside. And that winter was no exception; in fact, it was probably the best winter I'd had since coming to Hogwarts. I went home to the farmhouse feeling full and contented.   
  



	5. Sorrow and Secrets

  
  
** Four ~ Sorrow and Secrets **  
  
I came back to Hogwarts feeling frazzled and tired and hopeless.   
  
I had expected our farm to be housing people forced out of their homes by the Muggle bombings, but I hadn't expected so many people. There must have been three dozen people stuffed into the various crevices of our slapdash house and into the lofts and stacks of the barn. There were children I didn't recognize running around everywhere, from little moppets to surly teenagers. I wasn't allowed to talk about my magic – my mum pulled me aside right away – so I spent much of the holiday explaining things away to the visitors. The wizarding sweets were from a very exclusive candy shop in Glasgow, my school itself was a private girls' academy for those entering nunneries (which was a complicated and regrettable lie because one of the visitors was a former theology teacher who kept quizzing me about the lives of the prophets), and the like.   
  
Christmas Day itself was lovely; we woke up early and there were a dozen stockings up, each one filled with peppermints and oranges for every child at the farm, and Kitty and I smiled knowingly and told fibs about Father Christmas knowing where they were, even in the war (it is a little-known fact, even among wizards, that the real Father Christmas, also known as Nicholas the Benevolent, was a once-kind wizard who got irritated and quit forever in 1879 when he realised that over ninety percent of the world's children were naughty). These were the days before all the restrictions against underage wizardry, so I hid in the pantry and transfigured old blocks and things into dolls and toy trains, then hid them beneath our tree when no one was looking. My mum was appreciative of this and proclaimed Father Christmas a most generous gift-giver. We went to Mass and lit candles, and ate stuffed turkey and dressing and puddings until we all felt very sick.   
  
But the worst news, the absolute worst news, came whispered to me on Christmas night, when I was already half-asleep. Kitty had crept over to my bed when everyone else was stuffed and asleep and shook me gently. "Minerva?" she'd whispered.   
  
"Mmph," was my coherent reply.   
  
"Minerva, wake up, I've got something to tell you."   
  
"Kitty," I mumbled. "Kitty, did you have another nightmare?" When we were very young, Kitty would sometimes wake and crawl into bed with me, having dreamed of monsters or ghosts or of the farm burning down. I suppose I wasn't quite aware of the year because this was my first instinct; I reached up to her to cradle her as I had once done.   
  
"No, wake up all the way, come on now." She slapped my face lightly. "Come on."   
  
I blinked and rolled over, my hand splayed in front of me on the pillow as I drifted up into consciousness. "What is it?"   
  
Kitty's face was wide and anxious in the dim light, and her eyes fairly shone with gloom. She lay her head down on my pillow, across from me, looking directly at me, and she took a long, slow breath, as though to summon up some well of courage. "Listen, Minerva, don't be mad at Mum and Dad, they wanted you to have a good Christmas and not tell you until you're back at your school, but we're leaving in summer. Mum's scared about the war – it's gone on too long with no real end in sight, she says – and all the bombings down in London – and they think we ought to go to America or Canada – there are wizard schools for you over there, aren't there?"   
  
Of course there were wizard schools other than Hogwarts, but I didn't know that then. I cannot describe the state of my mind at that moment. It was simply – frenetic. It couldn't comprehend what my ears had just heard; it refused to process the information. "What? Kitty?"   
  
"I told Mum and Dad not to, but they wouldn't listen, and I'm sorry because I know you won't want to go and I'm sorry because I know you love it there." When I said nothing back – I believe I was quite dumbstruck – she curled her hand around mine in the dark and we lay together, listening to the other breathe.   
  
She was asleep long before I was.   
  
Truthfully, I was devising ways I could get them to stay in Scotland. It wasn't that I would miss my friends; except for Professor Dumbledore, there really wasn't anyone I would long to see – I hadn't known any of the Gryffindor girls that long, nor anyone else. It was that I could not bear the thought of being apart from Hogwarts itself. It was something I loved above all over things, like a prized possession kept in a coffer, only larger and more intricate and far more wonderful. I didn't think I could live without having the paintings shout greetings at me and without dodging poltergeists in the hallways, without watching Quidditch in the brisk, clear autumn and eating every meal under an enchanted ceiling. I buried my face into my pillow and willed myself not to cry that Christmas night, and I didn't. I lay silently, until the sound of Kitty and the other children sleeping finally lulled me into rest.   
  
By morning I had decided that, if worst came to worst, I would stay at Hogwarts and let them go. I didn't know how to say this to Mum and Dad, and especially to Kitty, so I spent the rest of the holiday mulling it over myself and saying nothing. Even to Kitty, who gave me concerned looks at least twice a day and squeezed my hand reassuringly whenever she could. It was as though she had taken the role of elder sister. I knew I was being selfish – childish, even. There were people all around whose lives had been torn to pieces, and I could not stop thinking about how I did not wish to leave my school. It was insensitive and wrong, but I couldn't help it. I played rounders with the children, visited people in the village, helped my mum do the washing (I asked to help her with magic but she was adamantly against it in case someone walked by), and all the while I felt very numb and unlike myself .   
  
Before I left to go back to Hogwarts, Kitty took me aside at the train station. "I love you, Minerva, you ought to know that." She gave me a cheeky little grin before the moment could get too serious. "You're the only sister I've got – who brings me dangerous sweets."   
  
"I do know that," I replied, ignoring the joke. I kissed her on the cheek and I think I clenched the handle of my trunk so hard that I nearly snapped it off. "I love you, too."   
  
The train ride was uneventful. When I stepped back into the common room, I wanted nothing more than to curl up with a large book about advanced Animagi, to lose myself in study, but I was immediately set upon by Myrtle, who had, apparently, just realized that we were to write the OWLs at the end of the year. Her books were spread all over near the fireplace. Cora and Cliona were watching with amusement, for no one but Myrtle cared about exams just after Christmas. "Minerva," she howled, "you've just got to help me with Transfiguration! Oh, I'm so dreadfully behind in everything!"   
  
"Oh, Myrtle," I said. "Of course I will. I'm a bit tired, though. Er – just let me go and grab the rest of my suitcases, all right?" I ducked out, presumably to retrieve the non-existent suitcases, and went to the Transfiguration classroom instead. Surprisingly, Professor Dumbledore was waiting for me.   
  
"I knew you'd be here." He was sitting at the desk looking very satisfied. "Did you have a Happy Christmas, Miss McGonagall?" he asked excitedly.   
  
"Er – yes, Professor." And it was suddenly as though some reservoir had overflowed inside of me, because I started to cry; I hadn't cried over the fact that I would have to leave yet, and I could bear it no longer. It was the worst possible time to choose for an emotional outburst, as I hated crying in front of other people, especially people I respected. "No," I said quietly through the tears welling up in my eyes. "That's a lie."   
  
His brow furrowed. "What's wrong?"   
  
The whole situation came flooding out. I was powerless to stop it. It was like I had stepped outside of myself and was watching Minerva uncharacteristically run her mouth off and allow words to fall out in disorganized, impassioned heaps. After I was finished, Professor Dumbledore only looked at me for a long time, wise and impassive. He seemed to be thinking of what to say, and he let an awkward silence creep between us before he spoke. "They are your family, Miss McGonagall," he said softly.   
  
"But Hogwarts is my home," I replied, my voice small and pathetic-sounding.   
  
I expected a lecture, but instead he rose out of his chair and hugged me loosely. "Miss McGonagall," he said kindly. "You cannot help how you feel. Admittedly, the training you are doing here would be discontinued should you go to America." He ignored my stifled cry. "Unless, of course, there is need for a young Animagus there, which I very highly doubt. You should know this. But you should also think on your family. Think of your mother and father and sister, how you grew up, and how much you love them, and how often you will miss them. I cannot make the choice for you," he finished. "It will be no object once you can Apparate your way home, but that is not for two and a half years. I don't know if anyone can go without family for that long."   
  
"Can't we set up a Floo in the house in America? I mean, I know my family are Muggles, but they know all about magic; I'm certain that the Ministry would allow it if we only asked them."   
  
He stepped back. "I do not think so, Miss McGonagall. The Ministry's policy dictates that you should go to the wizarding schools in America – the ones you will be closest to. The Floo Network Authority will not set up Floo stations in the Muggle world if it can be avoided, and I'm afraid they will not take your personal attachment to Hogwarts into account. "   
  
I knew this was true, but to hear it aloud was hurtful. "I just – I just don't know what to do." I spat these words out. It has always been difficult for me to admit such things. "Bloody Muggle war – wizards can get along fine but _they're_ always fighting each other like wild animals."   
  
"Miss McGonagall, do not assume that wizards—" He paused, and then seemed to change his mind about what he was going to say. "I believe," he sighed, "that you need to allow yourself time to think. Perhaps you should continue trying to contact your true Animagus form – things might look different or easier through a foreign set of eyes."   
  
I took this advice to heart, and didn't even notice him slip out behind me. My books weren't with me, but I knew the incantations word for word. I whispered them softly, tears still sticky and drying on my cheeks, and I felt the expected connection open up – now sweetly familiar – but it was interrupted by a high, wailing sound. I sighed, bit my lip, and tried again, but the noise persisted, and I listened harder. It was a faint keening, not unlike the howl of a banshee.   
  
Someone besides myself, apparently, had chosen the day to cry.   
  
I couldn't hold my concentration. It was, quite possibly, the most horrible crying I had ever heard, even defeating Myrtle's very admirable skills. Thinking that I would never find my proper beast, I gathered up my senses and stepped out of the Transfiguration room, locking the door carefully behind me. I had to find the source of the weeping. It was echoing and it was hard to follow, but I tracked it down a few flights of stairs, into a dingy part of Hogwarts I had never been into before. It seemed wilder than the other bits, as though I were stepping through ruins. There was a low wooden door at the end of one corridor, and I pushed it open with all my might. It took several tries. And there, tucked into a small room I would have thought it impossible for him to fit into, was the source of the sound – Hagrid.   
  
"Hagrid?" I ventured. He didn't seem to hear me; he was still keening and rocking like a small child. Abruptly I felt very foolish for using formalities at a moment like this. "Rubeus?" I asked again, trying to make my voice as gentle as possible. Hagrid was a curious kind of boy, extremely large yet absolutely childlike.   
  
"M-Minerva," he gasped out. Apparently I wasn't the only one to drop politeness; he had never addressed me before without _Miss_ as a preface. "Don' tell anyone I'm down here."   
  
"I think the whole school might be able to hear you," I whispered kindly.   
  
He sniffed and looked up at me, his eyes wide with horror. "D'yeh think so?"   
  
It was only then I realized he was cradling something in his arms. It was an animal, but he held it as preciously as if it were his child. It was not the type of beast that he would inflict on his poor students decades later, but a relatively harmless Crup, which sort of resembled an overlarge, babyish dog, with a forked tail. It wasn't moving. "Is – is it dead? Is that why you're crying?"   
  
"Yeah," he said brusquely, and I could tell from the unnatural glittering in his eyes that he was about to start sobbing again. "Dunno what happened, just came down ter feed 'er and she was dead. Poor little baby."   
  
I stared at the thing, stricken. It was admittedly an unpleasant breed of beast, with a reputation for biting, but I felt awful all the same, for Hagrid must have loved it. I felt as if I were intruding on something intensely personal, and I shifted around uncomfortably. "Do you want me to go?"   
  
He didn't seem to hear me. "Dozens of 'em, all dead. An' this one!" He sniffled, gently set down the dead Crup, stroking one massive thumb over its still ears, and showed me what appeared to be a stone figurine of a Bluebottle, which is like a very large and furry housefly, with huge, prismatic eyes. One can find them in the Forbidden Forest. "Petrified, looks like," he said in a small voice. "How could that've happened?"   
  
"Well," I said, "there are lots of ways something can become petrified. I don't know them all, of course – loads of Dark Magic, there – but there are hexes and such." I couldn't think of anyone who would bother using them on Hagrid's creatures – Myrtle was most vocal about it, but I couldn't see her going on a creature-slaughtering rampage – but this was not my primary concern, for behind Hagrid's prone form was a crate, and the lid of this crate was slowly being lifted off by something with extremely hairy legs. "And drinking a – Hagrid, _what_ is that thing? It's escaping!" The creature in the box was dangling its long appendages over the side of its prison.   
  
"Oh!" he exclaimed, and pushed the thing back into the box. He lifted up a lid a little and peered inside. "I told yeh a hunnerd times that yer not ter try escapin'!" Hagrid whispered ferociously. "You mighta bin seen!"   
  
"I wanted to see your companion," came a strange, inhuman voice from inside the box. "Her voice woke me from my slumber, and I was intrigued. She sounds – delicious."   
  
"Hagrid!" I screeched, darting towards the door.   
  
"Ah, he's just kiddin' yeh. Harmless as anythin'." Hagrid smiled broadly for a moment, then seemed to remember the gravity of situation at hand. "Listen, Miss Minerva, I ain't s'posed to be keepin' some of these creatures down here – Headmaster Dippet thinks I oughta stick ter less dangerous ones – so could yeh keep it a secret? I might be expelled. That Slytherin says if Dippet knows, I'll—"   
  
"What Slytherin?" I asked sharply.   
  
He turned a faint pink. "Er – never you mind. Jus' please don' tell anyone about this. I'm gonna figure this out on m'own. Maybe one of the ghosts—"   
  
I know now that a great deal of problems would have been solved or indeed would have never come to pass had I done what I should have done – taking my position as a Prefect seriously and going to Dippet about this violation of the rules. Yet, instead, I made a mistake. There was something about Rubeus Hagrid, even then, that made it seem reasonable to exempt him from some things. It could have been his genuine concern for beasts that most would consider frightening and vile, or the grief he was obviously feeling, or even just the quiet depth to his gigantic coal-black eyes, but, at that moment, it was impossible to refuse him. "All right, then, Hagrid," I agreed. I eyed the box with the mysterious monster inside. "But keep it contained."   
  
He leaned forward and hugged me, a gentle third-year boy twice my size, and started to cry again. I patted him on the back – or on the shoulder, as I couldn't quite reach around to his back – and said, "Don't worry, I'm sure you'll find other beasts in the Forbidden Forest."   
  
"'T'won't be the same."   
  
"I know, but it'll be close to the same."   
  
Hagrid smiled again. "Thank yeh."   
  
I was certain I'd made the right choice. "You're welcome." I gave the odd crate a final wary glare, thinking that its occupant was most likely responsible for the deaths of the other creatures. Hagrid wasn't the wisest when it came to judging a creature's viciousness. "Don't pick up anything too dangerous, understand? I don't need Myrtle Markels screaming at me even more."   
  
He laughed. "That one's got a bit o' a problem with me, she has."   
  
And I went. I have thought about this moment every day since Harry Potter came tumbling out of the Chamber of Secrets to tell the world about how Hagrid was innocent, and all I could think about was how I could have got rid of that bloody spider, right there, and everything would've been worked out properly. And the future really is axiomatic; who knows what could have happened if we knew the truth at the end of that year rather than accusing the wrong man for half a century? But it chills me to think of it, and I won't dwell on it any longer. Absolution never comes from simply sitting and blaming oneself, and I find myself speaking as an old woman again – I will return to young Minerva.   
  
At dinner that night I saw something very strange while Cora was raving about the wizarding New Year's party she'd been to in London. Tom Riddle slunk over to the end of the Gryffindor table, and whispered into Hagrid's ear. I stared in surprise – they were the two people I would have least expected to get along – until Riddle looked up and saw me. I hastily looked away and tuned Cora back in. "Champagne that made you float in the air? Really?" I asked falsely.   
  
"Oh yes, it was like flying, and they had the most wonderful noisemakers. They didn't just hoot and honk, they played songs and shouted and spoke to one another." She giggled and turned faintly red. "My blasted noisemaker kept flirting with the one belonging to this cute fellow who'd been in Ravenclaw when he was here – not that I minded so much, he was rather nice. Well, he was once the noisemakers stopped making lewd suggestions to us."   
  
Myrtle leaned forward eagerly to hear this juicy bit of the story; Cliona rolled her eyes and looked at me for support. "Big match against Slytherin tomorrow," she crowed. "My favourite thing is beating those idiot serpents – you coming to watch?"   
  
"Wouldn't miss it."   
  
"I practiced some great moves over the holiday. There's this awesome one with a double fake – a feint is what the book you gave me called it, how bloody technical of them – and then a hit that ricochets from the stands and absolutely decimates the target's broom. I think I'll try it on one of their slimy old Chasers – Harvey's got a new Comet; I bet if I blasted it he'd be too thick to cast _Reparo_."   
  
"I can't wait," I said dully. Normally, this would have been an exciting conversation, but I could not put my heart into it. I looked at Hagrid again, but Riddle was already gone and Hagrid was quite blithely eating a slab of fudge. Probably just some Prefect thing, I thought, but there was an icy feeling in my stomach that wouldn't go away, even as I tried to sleep that night. I had taken in so much that day, it's a wonder I slept at all – but reading over my History of Magic notes did the trick.   
  



	6. First Transformation

  
  
**Five ~ First Transformation**   
  
"What do you do over the summer, Riddle? When there's no school?"   
  
This question was blurted out in the middle of the next morning's Potions class, and, even though it was unforgivably rude and out-of-place, I stared at Riddle until he answered me. I had been thinking about my own situation, and I'd realized that I hadn't known what the orphaned wizards did. Surely Dippet didn't make the boy go back to a Muggle orphanage.   
  
"What is to you, McGonagall?" he sneered.   
  
"Just curious," I said. "I mean, do you go back to that – that place?"   
  
"It's none of your concern."   
  
"Well, fine. I'll go back to not making conversation with you."   
  
He looked at me for a long time, holding a measuring flask in mid-air, as if he'd been hit with a Freezing Charm. "No, I don't go back," he said finally. "It's called the O'Shea Home for Wayward Children, by the way. Young criminals as well as orphans. It's in Surrey. But I don't go back there, or, rather, I have not been back since my second year. Headmaster Dippet has made – certain concessions for me."   
  
It was the most he'd ever said to me in five years. "Certain concessions? What do you—"   
  
"Miss McGonagall, Mister Riddle, please remember that your time in this class is for potion-brewing, not for socializing." Professor Caldecott was glaring at us from his desk.   
  
I snapped my mouth shut, fighting back the urge to inform Professor Caldecott that I would never _socialize_ with Riddle. Certain concessions. I thought of all the times I had gotten on the Hogwarts Express, and I had never once seen Riddle there. He was never coming and going from the school. I tapped my chin and went back to work, thinking that next time I might overcome my dislike of him enough to ask him what in the world he was doing talking to Rubeus Hagrid.   
  
"Did you have a good holiday?" Riddle asked.   
  
I jerked up, startled. He was back to working, as though he had never spoken at all. "Er – yes, I did. I stayed at my family's farm." I bit my lip at that, thinking that I shouldn't have said anything about family. "Did you?"   
  
"It was fine."   
  
"Were you here at Hogwarts?"   
  
"Yes." He laid down the flask and looked at me with those disturbing eyes. I felt instantly like I was being interrogated. "Look, McGonagall – were you the one who sent me the gift?"   
  
"Why would I do that?" I suddenly remembered Myrtle's Chocoballs and flushed. I didn't know whether to tell him, or to be silently offended that he could ever think I would be his secret admirer. I bit my lip. "Someone sent you a gift? That was nice," I added uncomfortably.   
  
He didn't reply, so I worked quietly while thinking very uncharitable thoughts about him, most of which involved the words _jerk_ and _prat_. Still, I wondered how he had reacted to Myrtle's present – surely she had been right in that he didn't often receive gifts. I just hoped he hadn't dumped them straight into the trash, but, then again, Myrtle would never know either way. The class ended.   
  
At the Quidditch game, I waved Hagrid over to sit with us; Myrtle gave a great offended yelp at this. "Minerva," she half-growled into my ear, "he's probably _crawling_ with critters. You're going to get infected or something."   
  
"Oh, stuff it," I whispered fiercely, and Hagrid plunked himself between Cora and myself. Cliona was zooming around by the Slytherin stands; we watched and cheered as she managed to knock the Slytherin Keeper off his broom.   
  
Hagrid glanced at Cora, who was involved in the game (or, rather, involved in watching one of the Gryffindor chasers who she'd recently gotten to fancy), and then leaned close to whisper to me. "Yeh haven't said anything to the Headmaster, have yeh?"   
  
"No," I replied while following the Quaffle with my eyes. "What in the world were you doing talking to Tom Riddle in the Great Hall last night?"   
  
He turned a brilliant shade of red. "Er – nothin' – he had ter take points from me."   
  
I knew instantly that this wasn't true; I habitually checked the Gryffindor tally every morning and it had been unchanged. Still, I said nothing more about it. Truthfully, I really didn't want to know. Myrtle was shooting Hagrid suspicious glances every minute or so, and I kept my eye on her in case she began another outburst.   
  
Afterwards, in the common room, I was reviewing my Astronomy charts for the OWLs. Myrtle sat herself beside me, and I looked up from the diagram I was sketching of the constellation Lyra. "Shouldn't you be studying?'   
  
"D'you ever wonder why Tom Riddle never shows up to watch Quidditch?"   
  
"Shouldn't you be studying?" I repeated with a half-laugh. "And no, I don't wonder about Tom Riddle and his Quidditch-watching habits, or anyone else's for that matter." I turned serious. "Look, Myrtle, you need to stop worrying about boys and think about your OWLs. I don't think Tom Riddle is all that great – I have him as my Potions partner, as you very well know, and he's been nothing but an ass to me for five years."   
  
Her face twitched curiously, and she stood up and left me to my star charts. I watched her retreat, feeling slightly guilty, as if I had done something unspeakably cruel to her. I looked down at my chart and realized I had misarranged the stars.   
  
The rest of January passed by in a blur and changed swiftly to February, and it was on the first of February, in 1942, when I found myself practicing in the Transfiguration room for what seemed like the hundredth time that year. Dumbledore was there, too; he monitored my sessions once a week and left me alone for whatever additional ones I chose to do. Both of us were silent. By this time, I was so skilled at the incantations that I was able to sustain the connection to the catalogue of beasts, as I called it in my head, for up to fifteen minutes. Yet no one creature had yet leapt out as my own, and, admittedly, I was becoming distressed. It felt as if no animal wanted me.   
  
Then, in an instant, everything changed. A hot jolt of pain spun through my mind, and I fell back onto the stone floor. My stomach lurched, my head ached; I felt about ready to faint right there, with Professor Dumbledore watching me. I was vaguely aware that my entire body was tingling – changing. I felt smaller, stealthier, but my head was still reeling with pain, and I had to throw my hands up to my temples – but they wouldn't move that way, not the way they were supposed to. I closed my eyes, and, when they opened again, the world had changed.   
  
Colours were different. There were fewer of them, and it was harder to tell where an object and the next began. I rose to my feet – but it wasn't right, I was crawling rather than walking, except it wasn't really crawling, either, because I was comfortable with it. It seemed natural. I was abruptly aware that the back of my ear was itching, and I reached up to scratch at it, but I grazed it roughly with my claws.   
  
I had claws?   
  
"Miss McGonagall? Do you understand me?"   
  
I looked up at Dumbledore, who was suddenly much taller, and miaowed.   
  
Then I blacked out.   
  
When I woke up in the infirmary, I was in human form again. Professor Dumbledore was sitting at my side; the rest of the place was empty. As soon as I got my bearing, I sat up stock-still and exclaimed, "I'm a tabby-cat!" I looked down at my hands, marvelling at the fact that hours ago they had been furry little paws.   
  
His face was lined with concern, but his eyes were shining. "So you are," he said warmly. "You managed to stay in form for almost a full minute – that's very impressive for a first transformation. Are you feeling ill at all?"   
  
"Well – now that you mention it—" I could taste vomit in my throat, and, wordlessly, he handed me a large bucket, which I promptly threw up into. "Professor – is this normal? To feel so awful after changing forms?" My stomach was heaving violently, and my eyes were watering.   
  
"It will subside eventually," he assured me. "The initial transformation is quite a shock to the system; it's often accompanied by dizzying pain. Eventually, your body will become accustomed to changing into your Animagus form – after a good deal of practice, you will experience no pain or discomfort whatsoever."   
  
I paused. "It was very – disconcerting."   
  
"I'd imagine so," he chuckled. "I'm quite impressed that you managed to accomplish a full transformation so early – it often takes a fully-qualified witch or wizard a year or more. You must take a few days to recuperate; I will allow you to have tomorrow's classes off."   
  
I started to protest, but was overcome by another wave of nausea, and I had to rest my chin back against the bucket. "Perhaps I'm slightly masochistic, Professor," I said weakly, "but I can scarcely wait to try transforming again." When he laughed, I was struck by a thought. "How are we going to explain my being in here?"   
  
"I told Headmaster Dippet that you were overcome by a bout of flu while we were doing our wand core research," he chuckled, "and I also told your friend Myrtle Markels while she was passing me in the corridor. I imagine the news will spread outward from there."   
  
He was right. Not an hour later, Myrtle, Cora, and Cliona appeared in the infirmary, bearing food they'd nicked from that evening's meal in the Great Hall. "I was in here when I fell off my broomstick last year," Cliona said sympathetically, "and the food in here was just the worst."   
  
"She can't eat, you nitwit," Cora said. "She's ill."   
  
Cora was right, but I took their gift appreciatively, and even managed to eat a buttered roll. I arranged for all of them to take notes for me in the classes I would miss, and then sat back and listened to their chatter until they had to take leave. It might sound like they were foolish, but they were not, and I always enjoyed having them there, even I had nothing to contribute to the conversations but my ears. Truthfully, I even enjoyed hearing vitriolic comments about Olive Hornby once in a while – she really was a vile girl.   
  
Later in the evening, I received an unexpected visitor in the form of Rubeus Hagrid, who grinned at me widely and proferred a large plant wrapped in a bow as a gift. The plant, apparently taking his cue, also broke into a large grin. "Hagrid, thank you, but – what _is_ it?"   
  
He sat down on the chair beside my bed, which creaked under his weight. "It's a Plainswell Pitcher plant," he said in a perfectly casual voice as he set the thing down on the side table. "Don' worry, though, Miss Minerva – I found yeh one that's a vegetarian. Yeh don' want 'im to be snappin' at yer fingers while yer sleepin'."   
  
I glanced at the plant suspiciously. "How do you know it's a vegetarian?"   
  
"The grass was all et up where I found 'im," Hagrid said proudly. "I'll show yeh." He snagged a piece of broccoli from the food the girls had brought me, and offered it up to the mouth of the plant. The plant opened up and secured the morsel with a long, green tongue. "See? He's a good boy," Hagrid cooed, stroking the upper stem of the plant, which emitted a sort of purring noise.   
  
I had to laugh. "I suppose you think ordinary plants are far too boring?" I asked. I touched the plant where he had, and I could feel it vibrating softly. "It's very interesting, though – I like it."   
  
"I thought yeh might. Yeh have to name 'im, yeh know. It's bad luck not to."   
  
"Mmm. Any suggestions?"   
  
"Snappers," Hagrid said promptly, as if he'd had the name picked out for years.   
  
"Snappers it is, then," I confirmed, feeding it another piece of broccoli. "Wherever did you find it?"   
  
"Er – well, uh, I was just poking round in the forest, Miss Minerva – but don' be angry, I didn't go too far in. There's nothin' too bad in the first few steps in." He looked very chagrined, and he looked at Snappers with a bit of horror on his face, finally realizing he'd just given a Forbidden Forest creature to a school prefect.   
  
"Ah, well, Hagrid, just be careful what you bring out." There was really no way he could get too hurt in there – he was larger than most of the creatures. His face brightened considerably. "I'm already keeping a worse secret for you, remember? Just don't give me any more," I teased.   
  
"Yeh, yeh." He hurried out before I could catch him at anything else. I spent the rest of the evening feeding bits of food to Snappers (true to Hagrid's claim, it refused to even acknowledge a sliver of a kipper I tried to tempt it with). I was allowed to go back to Gryffindor Tower in the morning, and, although I felt well enough to attend classes, I decided to enjoy my day off. It was the day for History of Magic, Potions, and Transfiguration – I wouldn't miss much in the latter, and I didn't particularly fancy putting up with the other two.   
  
Myrtle and Cora burst into the dormitory before supper. "I don't care if you can't eat a thing!" Cora exclaimed (in fact, I was quite hungry). "You're coming down to dinner! Headmaster Dippet has announced that there's going to be a big surprise!"   
  
I rolled over on my bed, partially with interest and partially to obstruct the title of _Dealing with the Physical Demands of Advanced Transfiguration Techniques_. "What sort of surpise?"   
  
"We don't know," Myrtle said impatiently. "But it's got to be something big."   
  
"Maybe exams have been cancelled," Cora said wistfully.   
  
Cliona came up behind them. "Ha! As if exams would ever be cancelled at Hogwarts! Dippet's probably loaded on extra exams and expects us to be raving about it." She grinned at me, then her gaze fell on Snappers, which I had relocated to my desk in the dormitory. "Minerva! What's that?"   
  
"It's a Plainswell Pitcher," I said matter-of-factly, as if were no more unusual than a pot of violets. "Hagrid gave it to me as a sort of get-well present." As if aware that I was I talking about it, Snappers gave a little ducking bow.   
  
Myrtle leaned over it, her eyes wide and goggling. "It's probably vicious."   
  
"It is not," I said immediately. "It only eats vegetables." Shoving my book under my pillow, I stood up out of bed and dusted myself off. "Come on, let's go down to supper. I want to hear what the surprise is."   
  
The four of us traipsed down to the Great Hall, which seemed more alive than usual. I sat down and filled a plate with food, plus a serviette filled with steamed carrots and leeks for Snappers. "Feeling better?" Cliona laughed.   
  
"Quite. It must have been one of those day-long illnesses," I lied.   
  
"Hush!" Cora hissed. "Dippet's just come up to the High Table!" Her face was filled with tightly-controlled excitement; halfway to her mouth, a fork with a roasted potato on it was stopped in mid-bite. The day must have been rife with the rumour, for the rest of the student body looked equally rapt. Olive Hornby had a wide and rather dumb expression on her face. I glanced around – the only students besides myself who didn't seem to care were Cliona, and, over at the Slytherin table, Tom Riddle.   
  
"Oh, I can hardly stand it!" Myrtle whispered. "Why doesn't he just say it?"   
  
Dippet looked at each table, from Slytherin to Gryffindor, and smiled widely. "A number of students have come to me with interesting requests, and it is with them in mind that I make this announcement. It seems that many of you are distressed by the lack of social events here at Hogwarts; consequently, on the fourteenth of February, less than two weeks from now, the Great Hall will host a grand Valentine's Day Ball, with students and alumni alike attending. While anyone may attend, fifth-years and above are required to do so – we won't have our alumni come and see no students, will we?" He boomed with laughter, which no one echoed. "Well, at any rate, please be advised that dress will be formal – no Quidditch robes, Miss Brocklehurst – and that we, the staff, hope you enjoy this event."   
  
The rest of the staff were beaming, even Professor Binns, who, as usual, looked about ready to kick the bucket. The reaction in the Great Hall was immediate; most of the girls looked triumphant, as if celebrating a victory, and most of the boys had slunk low into their seats and were darting their eyes about furtively at the girls. Myrtle and Cora had their heads together; both were whispering excitedly. "What if I prettied up the Gryffindor robes a little?" Cliona moaned.   
  
"That won't do at all," Myrtle said firmly. "We've got to get to Gladrags, all four of us, and get ourselves new dress robes." Cliona, for her part, looked very green at this prospect; like me, she was probably remembering with great horror the three hours we'd spent watching Cora try on the sale items last autumn.   
  
"Oh, I've just got to go, I've just got to," Cora whined. "D'you think that because I'm technically still in fourth year that I'll need a date to go? I'll just die of shame if I can't go because nobody asks me."   
  
I thought about the idea of a ball, and shrugged. Really, it seemed like nothing more than a waste of time to me. "Now I'll have to miss a night of studying for my OWLs and practicing my—" I stopped suddenly. I had nearly said _transformations_.   
  
Cliona's ears perked up. "Practicing your what?"   
  
"Er – my Charms," I covered quickly. "You know how lousy I can be at Cheering Charms." I quickly forced my attention onto to my plate, and began eating at what must have been a highly unhealthy pace. I could feel Cliona's eyes burning into my forehead, but I steadfastly looked down, and soon, she looked away.   
  



	7. Unwelcome News

  
  
**Six ~ Unwelcome News**   
  
At breakfast, the Great Hall was abuzz with gossip and whispers about the ball, but I couldn't bring myself to care very much about it. I highly doubted that anyone would bother asking me – or Cliona, Cora, and Myrtle, for that matter. But Cora and Myrtle were utterly aglow with excitement.   
  
"I hope nobody asks Olive Hornby," Myrtle whispered fiercely.   
  
"Nobody will," Cora assured her. "Look at all the pimples she's got now! She must have had too many sweets over Christmas break."   
  
Cliona had both hands clamped to her ears. "Am I going to be hearing this for the next two weeks? Please don't tell me I'll be hearing this for the next two weeks, because I'll have to stick wands in my ears, which will hopefully render me deaf and therefore save me from this intolerable nonsense."   
  
"Don't be such a spoilsport," Cora said. "I just bet, deep down, that you're excited."   
  
Cliona made a dismissive noise and dug into her porridge.   
  
The owls came flying into the Great Hall, signifying the morning's post. An owl swooped down in front of me with a letter round its legs; I untied it, recognizing Kitty's untidy hand, and fed the owl a slice of orange before it went on its way.   
  
"Who's it from?" Myrtle asked.   
  
"My sister." I tore it open.   
  
_Dear Minerva,   
  
I'm afraid what I warned you about at Christmas has come to pass. Mum and Dad have decided that we're leaving for America at the end of June. Most of the people at our farmhouse have already left, and, the way the news is going, it looks like matters are only getting worse. All the boys in town have gone off into the army. Mum and Dad decided that they wouldn't tell you until after the Easter holiday, but I thought you should know now because that'll give you more time to think about.   
  
You know I love you, Minerva, but I also know you love that school, and I will not be hurt if you decide to stay. I've already decided that I'm coming back to Scotland once this blasted war is done, and I hope Mum and Dad do the same, so, God willing, we won't be separated for long. I know that you live in a world very different than my own, and, at present, I envy you this (and not just because of the dangerous sweets, mind). I'm afraid. Mum says Angus McFie died last week in battle – do you remember when we climbed the oak with him and he fell and broke his ankle? He whinged about that for weeks. Well, now he's gone, he's dead, and Mum says that's just the start of it. I think she thinks that Dad might have to go soon – Dad's only thirty-nine, remember, and that's not terribly old, especially if all the young men cark it over in France.   
  
I sound terribly morbid. I'm sorry. I don't want to go to America, either, but Mum and Dad won't hear a word of protest, and I need someone to talk to. Please write back as soon as you can, and I'll see you at Easter, and you must remind me that I owe you a very large hug.   
  
Always your sister,   
  
Kitty McGonagall_   
  
My hand fell to the table, and I sat there numbly. Cora was the first to notice. "Minerva? Minerva! What's wrong? You've gone all white!"   
  
My throat felt parched, like I hadn't had a drink in a thousand years. "My mum – and my dad, and my sister—" I couldn't finish. Silently, I passed the letter to her, and she read it with Cliona and Myrtle leaning over each of her shoulders. A good five minutes passed before anyone said anything, but I barely noticed. I could think only of Kitty as she had been when I'd seen her last, laughing and saying goodbye.   
  
Cliona was the first to speak up. "Minerva – I'm sorry."   
  
"You're not going, too, are you?" Myrtle blubbered. "You just can't go! I heard some of the wizarding schools in America don't even teach Transfiguration! You couldn't deal with that, you just couldn't!"   
  
"Shut up, you insensitive nit!" Cliona growled.   
  
"I don't know, Myrtle," I said dazedly. I snatched the letter and stuffed it into my schoolbag. "I just – don't know." All of a sudden, I couldn't bear to be there anymore. I grabbed my bag and books and walked out of the Great Hall, mid-breakfast.   
  
I sat through Care of Magical Creatures and Herbology that day with nary an inclination to care about what was going on in class. Cora, who was in Herbology, had to poke me into paying attention more than once; ordinarily, it was the other way around. A few times during the day I took out a bit of parchment – I had to write back to my sister – but I couldn't think of what to say. Everything I could think of seemed false and uncertain, and I wound up deciding to leave it alone for a few days, so I could think about it.   
  
But it was always there, in the back in my mind. When I attempted a second transformation with Professor Dumbledore, I simply couldn't do it. My mind wouldn't clear itself enough to allow the entry of my Animagus form. "Is there something troubling you, Miss McGonagall?" Professor Dumbledore asked after my failed attempt.   
  
"No – yes – well, I'm preoccupied."   
  
"Ah," he said, and winked knowingly at me. "The Valentine's Day Ball. I can't teach my classes properly, for fear of being hit by all the hormones."   
  
"Er – yes, that's it, sir." I rushed out of the room; I wasn't eager to have a repeat crying spate in front of the man I respected most. I was content to let him think I was being some vapid, silly girl. He left me alone in the Transfiguration classroom, and I lay on that stone floor where I had been a cat a few short days ago, and thought about Muggles and war. I didn't really understand any it – _The Daily Prophet_ only mentioned the war in passing, but, at Christmas, it had seemed as though the world was ready to fall down. Why was there such a vast difference between the two worlds?   
  
A most surprising thing happened at supper later that week; I was talking with Myrtle, or rather listening to her sound off about her grievances, when I heard the creak of heavy, masculine footsteps behind me.   
  
"Excuse me."   
  
I turned around from my conversation with Myrtle and was stunned to see Emmet Fawcett, the revered Hufflepuff Beater himself, standing there. He had a few flowers clenched in one hand, and his hair was tousled handsomely, as if he'd just finished a Quidditch practice. "What – what would you like?" I stammered, taking off my glasses to polish.   
  
"Could I have a word with you, Miss Markels?" he asked, looking intently at Myrtle.   
  
Myrtle nodded wordlessly, and he extended his hand to her, leading her right out of the Great Hall. I watched them suspiciously, and I wasn't alone – Cliona and Cora wore identical looks of shock.   
  
Five minutes later, Myrtle came back into the Great Hall looking happier than I'd ever seen her, bright and excited. "He asked me to the Ball!" she cried, and nearly danced on the spot. "Oh, Emmet Fawcett asked me to the Ball – I can't believe my luck! Oh, this is incredible!"   
  
Cliona blanched. "I thought you were holding out for that Slytherin Tom Riddle."   
  
Myrtle snorted. "I'm off Tom Riddle, and back on Emmet Fawcett," she announced. "I asked him why he was laughing at me when I fought with Olive, and he told me he wasn't laughing at me at all, but at that great stupid Olive! Can you imagine? Isn't it the loveliest thing?"   
  
"Congratulations," Cora breathed. Her eyes were positively glowing.   
  
"I just can't believe it," Myrtle declared.   
  
"Now all that has to happen is Niall MacDougal asking Minerva, and then that'll be two great miracles," Cliona crowed.   
  
I sank down into my chair. I've always fancied myself above having silly things like schoolgirl crushes, and I didn't think anyone had noticed. I suppose I must have quite moony-eyed whenever I saw him; I can always tell when girls in my classes have a thing for the boys at their desks.   
  
It seemed that the Hufflepuff boys were coming out in full force. Later at dinner, we witnessed Freddie Hull, the team's Keeper, pulling the same trick with Olive Hornby, who came back looking just as exuberant as Myrtle had. The same evening, Cora came back to the Gryffindor common in an excited flush. "Charles St. Clair asked me to go to the ball with him! Isn't it wonderful?" She spun around the common room laughing, with her arms out. "Oh, we've definitely got to go to Gladrags now – isn't it convenient that this is a Hogsmeade weekend?" Charles St. Clair was a Chaser on the Hufflepuff Quidditch team.   
  
"Oh, that's wonderful!" Myrtle exclaimed.   
  
"Smashing," Cliona said sarcastically.   
  
Cora shot her a dirty look. "I don't see _you_ going with anyone, Cliona."   
  
"Right." Cliona rolled her eyes, then walked over to Hagrid, who was murmuring sweetly to Snappers, feeding it bits of apple, which Snappers seemed to have a great liking for. He often requested that I bring the plant down to the common room. "Hagrid," Cliona said commandingly, "I reckon we should go to the ball together."   
  
Hagrid looked at her as if she'd gone mad. "Really, Miss Cliona?"   
  
"Why not? I like a man who looks like he can withstand a Bludger."   
  
Hagrid broke into a silly grin and nodded, while Cliona instructed him solemnly, "Don't go off getting any of that rubbish like corsages and Valentine cards, I don't like any of that soppy stuff. Er – and don't bring anything with fangs. Or claws, or wings – actually, just leave the creatures altogether, right, Hagrid? Oh, should I call you Rubeus?"   
  
He turned an odd, greenish colour. "Nah – never liked people who called me that much. Jus' Hagrid's fine."   
  
"Right, Hagrid, but you'd better stop calling me _Miss Cliona_."   
  
"Jus' Cliona, then?"   
  
"Precisely. Or Queen Brocklehurst, whichever you prefer, really." She gave him a quick hug and peck on the cheek (to which he blushed furiously) and returned to where Cora and Myrtle were standing. Both girls wore identical expressions of disdain. Cliona responded to them with an air-kiss. "Love you, girls!" she cried in a high falsetto.   
  
"That was very kind of you," I whispered to her later.   
  
She shrugged. "I like him. Not _that_ way, of course, but he's the only male in the building who's not completely full of himself. And he is very sweet, even if his snowballs are like missiles of death."   
  
That night, I tried to write my reply to Kitty again, but I wound up just crumpling up piece after piece of parchment. I wanted to tell her so many things, but I didn't know myself what I was going to do. I wanted to reassure her, to tell her I'd always be with her like I used to when she would crawl under my covers, but that wasn't true, so I could not write it to her. I wanted to tell her I loved her, which was certainly true, but then I began to think that if I truly loved her, I would leave Hogwarts to be with her and my mum and dad. It wasn't that I didn't love them, and I certainly wanted to be with them – there were so many times I wished they were magical, too, so they could live with me all the time, so Kitty could come to Hogsmeade (I just knew she'd buy out Zonko's if she could) – but, at the same time, I could not stand the thought of leaving Hogwarts, of leaving my Animagus training unfinished, of leaving my friends and Professor Dumbledore and Hagrid.   
  
I ended up breaking my quill on my twenty-eighth try at a letter and going to bed with a heavy heart. Most of the letters hadn't got much further than _Dearest Kitty_. I lay awake most of that night, trying to picture myself in America. It was hopeless. I'd only just begun to find friends at Hogwarts, and I didn't want to start over. I wasn't good at fitting in.   
  
On Friday morning before Potions, I was in a foul mood, not only because I still couldn't get Kitty's letter out of my mind, and not only because I'd had to take points off the Gryffindor second-years for using magic in the halls, but because I was the only one who hadn't been asked to the ball. Well, technically, Cliona hadn't been asked, but she had a date, all the same.   
  
But, before I got into the dungeon, I was stopped in my tracks by none other than Niall MacDougal, the seventh-year Hufflepuff Seeker whom I'd been admiring from afar. His mouth was stretched into a wide, lazy grin. "Hey, little prefect," he said warmly. "Tell me your name?"   
  
I pressed my books up against my chest in a vain effort to disguise the rapidity of my breathing. "Er – it's Minerva. Minerva McGonagall."   
  
"Well, Minerva McGonagall, she of the long name, do you want to go to the ball with me?" His face was open, genuine, and quizzical; it was like he'd only asked me if I had the notes for that day's Herbology class.   
  
My mouth dropped open; hastily, I controlled it. "Er – yes – yes, I do," I managed to squeak out.   
  
"Brilliant." He flashed me a smile. "I've seen you – you watch all the Quidditch games, even the ones where Gryffindor isn't playing. I'll meet you outside the Great Hall at seven-thirty, all right?"   
  
"Sure," I choked out. I noticed I was fiddling with my glasses. "Er – yes. Sure." I mentally kicked myself; he probably thought I was a babbling fool.   
  
"Well, Minerva McGonagall, I don't want you to be late for class." He beamed at me one last time, then strode off smoothly and effortlessly. For a minute, I could only stare open-mouthed at his retreating form, and then my mouth split into a huge smile. Niall MacDougal had just asked me to the Valentine's Day Ball! Everything that had been troubling me – Kitty's letter, keeping Hagrid's secret, OWLs, my failure to transform – all of it was swept away in an instant.   
  
As soon as I slid into my seat at the Potions desk, Riddle took one short look at me and scoffed. "What's the idiot grin for, McGonagall?"   
  
"Not that it's any of _your_ business, Riddle, but I've been asked to the ball." I was so anxious to tell Myrtle and Cora (and even Cliona, who would undoubtedly make a snide comment) that I was even glad to tell Riddle, who only gave a derisive snort and went back to his usual routine of giving me the silent treatment.   
  
I slammed my books down and was perfectly content to do the same. Even Riddle couldn't ruin my good mood. Predictably, when I returned to the dormitory and told Myrtle, she got off her bed and jumped up and down with excitement. "Oh, this'll be the best thing _ever_!"   
  
On Saturday, the four of us trekked into Hogsmeade with the sole intention of purchasing dress robes. Only Cora actually owned a set, but she'd worn them at the Christmas party she'd been to, the one with the impolite noisemakers, and couldn't bear that some of the same people would be in attendance. When we went into Gladrags, the store was utterly packed with Hogwarts girls (and a few boys) clamouring to buy, so we waited patiently (Cora, ever-impatient, went on a run to Honeydukes so we'd at least have sweets to pass the time with).   
  
When it was finally our turn, most of the students had cleared out, so we were able to shop at relative leisure. Cora and Myrtle wasted no time in choosing their new dress robes (pink and mauve, respectively), and even Cliona finally settled on a rather elegant set of dark burgundy, but I had never done such a thing before, and I lingered through the aisles, wondering what Niall would like, wondering if what I chose would clash terribly, berating myself for not knowing to ask the colour of his robes, and, indeed, wondering what in the world to do.   
  
Myrtle, seeing my distress, yanked on my arm and dumped five or six sets of robes into my arms. "Try _these_ ones," she advised. "You're not near as thick as me; you'll look good enough in anything."   
  
And, in spite of her shortcomings, Myrtle did have a solid fashion sense. The first sets of robes fit fine, and looked fair, but when I came out wearing the last set – a shimmery pure black – all three of my friends clucked their approval.   
  
"That's the one!" Myrtle announced. "Oh, Minerva, that's got to be it."   
  
"Say, don't you look nice," Cliona grinned. "Never knew you had it in you."   
  
I looked down at myself. "I like them," I said hesitantly, "but aren't they awfully thick and roomy on me? I feel like I'd be dragged down by the weight all night."   
  
"Not a problem," Cora said smugly.   
  
She drew out her wand, and, with a quick charm, altered the fabric to fit me perfectly. I had to lift my hands over my head to allow it to wind its way around myself, and watched as it settled neatly around my body, like it had been a perfect size all along. I raised an eyebrow at her. "You need to apply that skill to your actual classes."   
  
"Don't I know it! And now you've got to buy them; the witch at the counter just gave me a dirty look." She looked at the saleswitch and waved sheepishly.   
  
"I think I will buy them," I said thoughtfully. For a moment, I allowed myself some vanity, and twirled in front of the mirror. They really were very flattering robes, with no shoulders, and wide, long sleeves. I moved a little and marvelled at how graceful I felt, even skirting the somewhat dingy carpet in Gladrags. It was the first time I can remember that I felt beautiful, and it was a new and wondrous feeling, a pleasant twist in my stomach.   
  
"Now if only we could be rid of our _wretched_ glasses," Myrtle moaned at me.   
  
"Well," I reasoned, "we could always do an Ocular Charm – I don't like them myself, they always make my eyes itch too much to pay attention in lessons – but, then again, I don't see why we shouldn't on a special occasion."   
  
Myrtle's eyes were shining as we strode up to the counter. "You mean – such a charm exists?"   
  
"Of course," I said slowly. "It's right in _The Standard Book of Spells_ – I can't recall which of the volumes, but don't tell me that all this time you've been wearing your glasses and bemoaning their existence, not knowing there was a charm you could do to prevent having to wear them?"   
  
"Er—" Myrtle looked down at her hands with sudden interest. "I think we all ought to get a Butterbeer, don't you?"   
  
We clapped her on the back and laughed.   
  



	8. The Valentine's Day Ball

  
  
**Seven ~ The Valentine's Day Ball**   
  
The week leading up to the ball passed with ever-increasing excitement, and, admittedly, I was swept up in it. Myrtle and Cora were both absolutely unable to keep their heads on their lessons, and even Cliona was excited. I had no time to meet Professor Dumbledore that week, and he quite happily agreed to give me the time off – the prospect of a celebration cheered him, too. Hagrid was also anxious, and somewhat nervous; he came to speak to me for advice when I was looking through my school notes alone in front of the fire.   
  
He had draped over his arm what appeared to be a very large and very ugly chequered suit. Presumably, it was his garb for the ball; I eyed it suspiciously for a moment, then decided to keep my mouth shut. "Miss Minerva, I have a problem," he said, without preamble.   
  
"What's that?"   
  
"I – er – I don' know how to dance." He looked fearfully around the common room; it was late and it was empty. "I was wonderin' if maybe yeh could – give me some lessons?"   
  
The expression on his face was so convincing – a sweet mixture of apprehension and camaraderie – that I could scarcely say no. I nodded and rose from my spot on the floor. I started to put my hand up on his shoulder, but it was a bit of a stretch for me to reach. I knew I'd have to improvise, so I curled my hand round his upper arm. "That'll do," I said, more to myself than to him. "Now, put your left hand on my waist."   
  
He did so. It hung there awkwardly. I put my own left hand into his right and held our clasped hands up in the air. "Now we're in the proper position – well, sort of. I'm going to lead you for a bit, but you're really supposed to be leading me, so we'll give that a try after you've got the hang of it."   
  
Hagrid looked at me solemnly, as if concentrating on the hardest thing he'd ever had to do. "Right, so, one, two, three – step – one, two, three – step – one, two – _ouch_!" He'd trod on my foot, seemingly with all his weight. I winced, but recovered before he became too embarrassed. I began counting again, very slowly.   
  
"We'll try once more, all right? One, two, three – step – one, two, three – step!"   
  
Gradually, Hagrid learned the dance, and managed to avoid any more injuries to my feet.. About half an hour later, he was laughing and grinning with me as we waltzed around the common room, both of us dancing quite exuberantly. He was leading and finally comfortable with it. "Should I spin yeh, Miss Minerva?"   
  
"You may as well try it," I answered, and, instantly, he drew me around him in a perfect spin. I cheered. "Hagrid, I never knew you were such a quick study – I should think you'd get top marks with the way you pick up on things."   
  
"Yeh'd think," he quipped.   
  
The morning of the ball dawned with Cora and Myrtle shaking me awake. Blearily, I mumbled something incomprehensible at them – or I might have shouted. I don't really recall. "Come _on_, Minerva," Cora was saying. "It's already ten-thirty and you're not even up yet!"   
  
I buried my face into my pillow. "May I remind you that breakfast is until eleven-thirty on weekends?"   
  
"_Breakfast_?" Myrtle said this as though it were the most appalling thing in the world. "You can't eat breakfast today! You've got to fit into your dress robes as best as possible, and you don't need some heavy Saturday breakfast dragging you down!"   
  
"I'm hungry," I complained, sitting up and shooting them both a mutinous glare. "And I'll not go to the ball just to feel faint and dizzy the whole time." I ended up convincing them to accompany me down to breakfast, but both Cora and Myrtle only ate dried toast and drank pumpkin juice.   
  
Immediately following breakfast was a huge and unanticipated flurry of activity. I tried to retreat to my bed, where I pulled the curtains down and picked up one of my progress reports for Professor Dumbledore, but I barely had fifteen minutes of peace before Cora interrupted me again.   
  
"Come _on_," she urged, grabbing my hand and forcefully dragging me to my feet, "you're the only one still in her dormitory! You're missing everything!"   
  
I opened my mouth to ask precisely what I was missing, but, before I could, she had dragged me down into the common room, which had been overtaken by almost every girl in Gryffindor. There was a pack of sixth-years in the corner braiding each other's hair; two third-years were discussing the relative merits of short-sleeved robes. There was also a notable absence of boys; they had presumably retreated in fear and confusion. On one of the sofas, Myrtle was applying make-up to the face of a rather murderous-looking Cliona.   
  
"Oh!" Myrtle exclaimed. "Could you perform that Ocular Charm now, Minerva? I'm having a bit of trouble seeing what I'm doing here."   
  
I pulled out my wand and did it, and, with a shrug, used the charm on myself, as well. Pocketing my spectacles and mistakenly thinking that the charm was the only reason Cora had brought me down, I started back towards my dormitory and was instantly yanked backwards.   
  
"Ah," Cora grinned. "You aren't going anywhere."   
  
For the rest of the afternoon, I was poked and prodded by Myrtle, Cora, and several other Gryffindor girls I hadn't ever talked to until that day. Cora did a few more adjustments to my dress robes, so that they draped over my shoulders perfectly. Myrtle, after Cliona had escaped, contented herself with applying rouge and lipstick to my face. I had to make a conscious effort not to wipe it off – it felt odd and alien. A seventh-year girl I barely knew twisted my hair out of its customary long braid and worked it into loose waves. When everything was finished, I was about ready to collapse onto one of the soft chairs in the common room – but, of course, there would be nothing of the sort.   
  
"We're meeting Charles and Emmet down in the Great Hall, too," Cora announced to me while Myrtle nodded happily. Cliona and Hagrid, who had both not bothered to spend much time getting ready, were already downstairs. "You can walk with us – we'll all go together."   
  
I felt very beautiful swishing down the steps to the Great Hall entrance; I had looked in the mirror before setting off and had been shocked to see a face that scarcely resembled my own. The three boys were downstairs, waiting – with the other four from the Hufflepuff Quidditch team. All of them were waiting for their dates, looking at one another nervously.   
  
"You look – er, nice," Niall said, with a very strange look on his face. He took my hand. Charles St. Clair poked him in the shoulder and laughed briefly, and Niall shot him an angry glare.   
  
I watched the exchange uncomprehendingly. "What was that?"   
  
"Nothing," he spat. "Let's go in."   
  
We went into the ball. I looked around the Great Hall – which was merrily decked out in pinks and reds – searching for people I knew. Professor Dumbledore saw me and winked at me; Riddle was in the centre of a tightly-knit group of Slytherins, looking sullen and arrogant as usual. I waved at some fourth-year Gryffindors whom I had helped with a Switching Spell assignment the week before, but before I could talk to anyone, Cora wheeled me around to look at Cliona and Hagrid, who had abandoned all pretense of being polite and reserved, and were attacking a buffet table lined with Butterbeer.   
  
Cliona drank and surveyed the table of bottles with delight. "I imagine I could drink all of these."   
  
Hagrid laughed, seemingly at ease now. "Sounds like a right challenge." And the two of them instantly began a contest to see which could drink the most Butterbeer, starting with a time challenge (from which Cliona promptly emerged victorious), and continuing to a battle to see who could really drink the most.   
  
"You can't possibly win," I told Cliona.   
  
"Worth a shot," she gurgled through a mouthful of Butterbeer. Hagrid was already well ahead of her. Niall put a hand on the small of my back and silently directed me away from him. I looked questioningly up at him and was bewildered at seeing a dark and cross expression on his face.   
  
Dinner began and Niall and I sat at a large table with the rest of the Hufflepuff Quidditch team; I was sandwiched between Niall and Cora. As soon as everyone was settled, huge platters of food, trays of pink frosted cookies, and deep flagons of pumpkin juice appeared all around us. I had an inexplicably queasy feeling in my stomach throughout the entire meal – I could sense that something was not quite _right_.   
  
"You look ill," Niall said through a mouthful of potatoes.   
  
"I'm fine," I replied. I let my gaze travel over to Myrtle, who was talking animatedly to Emmet Fawcett. Her hands were moving; her eyes were alight with joy as she babbled on. Emmet, for his part, looked as though he was hearing a banshee screaming. The odd lurch in my stomach intensified.   
  
When we were finished eating, music started to play, and a few couples rose to dance. Hagrid and Cliona were among them, and so were Olive Hornby and Freddie Hull – though the latter were moving rather uncomfortably. "Do you think we ought to – you know? Dance?" I asked Niall, indicating the swaying people.   
  
"Maybe later on," he answered brusquely.   
  
We sat there, ill at ease, for the better part of an hour. I tried to make conversation, but Niall only answered in one-word phrases and occasionally glared at me as though I had done him some great injustice. I felt my cheeks grow hot – even Myrtle was making a brave attempt at dancing, but I was kept sitting.   
  
I was feeling more than a little bewildered at Niall's behaviour when I felt a tap on my shoulder. I turned around and saw the person I least expected – Riddle had escaped from the knot of Slytherins and was looking at me like I was an insect. "A word, McGonagall," he said plainly.   
  
"What?"   
  
Niall was also taken aback. "Who the hell are you?"   
  
Riddle ignored him. "Dance for a moment," he said, and grabbed me by the wrist.   
  
I was hastily pulled onto the dance floor. "What the hell are you doing?" I snarled at Riddle, enunciating each word through my teeth. "I don't want to dance with you," I said with equal venom as we fell into the steps. I didn't know whether to be polite to the git or just push him away.   
  
He put his head close to mine and whispered in my ear. "Don't flatter yourself, McGonagall. I'm certainly not here for the pleasure of your company." He gave me a cold look. "Those Hufflepuff half-wits decided they would have a contest, and I'm willing to bet Niall MacDougal is quite distressed that you turned up looking somewhat decent."   
  
"I – I beg your pardon! They're having a _what_?"   
  
"A contest, McGonagall, to see which of them brought the ugliest date. Galleons involved and all." My mouth dropped open; a hundred emotions flipped through me in an instant, but the dominant ones were rage and shame. Riddle shifted slightly, presumably to get a better look at something behind me, and then he leaned down to whisper privately again. "I think Emmet Fawcett has it wrapped up."   
  
I craned my neck, saw that he was looking at Myrtle, and I couldn't help it. I reared back and slapped him in the face. "You – you vicious bastard!" I hissed. "Don't you even _know_ she—" I caught myself before I revealed Myrtle's secret. I gritted my teeth, shot Riddle a withering glare, and stalked off to where Niall and Emmet were watching.   
  
Emmet saw me coming. "There she is," he snickered to Niall. "Rotten luck, that."   
  
"Shut up!" Niall hissed.   
  
"No need to keep your voices down," I said, and my voice was surprisingly calm. I was not quite looking at them, but Myrtle and Cora behind me. Cora was still with Charles St. Clair, who was looking surreptitiously at Niall and Emmet. I reached into the pocket of the dress robes and closed my hand around my wand.   
  
"What's the matter?" Niall asked sweetly.   
  
"Oh, nothing – well, except the rather insignificant fact that it's come to my attention you're nothing but a useless ass." I drew out my wand. I was still shockingly collected; a part of me marveled that I was not screaming with outrage. Emmet and Niall took a few steps backward.   
  
Niall gaped at me. "Minerva, what in Merlin's name are you doing?"   
  
"I heard about your little contest."   
  
People were starting to watch now. Riddle had been gazing, unblinking, at the spectacle ever since I had disentangled myself from him, but now Myrtle and Cora and Charles were watching; Cliona and Hagrid had stopped their battle of might to look at what was going on. Olive Hornby and Freddie Hull were looking, and so were the other Hufflepuff Quidditch team members and their dates, as well as many other students. With faint embarrassment, I saw that some of the teachers were also interested, Professor Dumbledore among them.   
  
For a long moment, no one said anything. Then Emmet shifted and said, "Well, McGonagall, I don't see what you're so crabby about. Niall here sure took a bet on the wrong horse."   
  
"Shut up, Emmet," Niall said again. "What're you going to do?" He turned to me, grinned. How had I never noticed how stupid and doglike his smile was? It was baffling. "Really, McGonagall – are you going to take points off of us?"   
  
"I'm going to hex you into next year if you take that tone with me again."   
  
"Go ahead!" Freddie Hull shouted from behind me. "I won the contest, anyhow."   
  
Emmet craned his neck and regarded Olive Hornby coolly, then glanced back at Myrtle, who was looking very abashed. "She may be hideous, Freddie, but I got you beat. Mine's a Mudblood. And check out her—"   
  
There was a great gasp. I whirled on him. "_Silencio_!" Whatever Emmet Fawcett had been about to say was cut off. I felt my cheeks growing hot. Now the anger was letting itself go, and, when I looked back and saw that both Cora and Myrtle were crying, I turned my wand on Niall and shouted, "_Petrificus Totalus_!"   
  
Niall's arms and legs snapped together; his eyes were wide with fury. "Think about this next time you hurt my friends!" I hollered, and then, before I could turn around and hex Freddie Hull and Charles St. Clair and the rest of them, I was yanked away roughly by the arm. I looked up to see Professor Caldecott with a grim expression on his face, followed by Professor Dumbledore and Headmaster Dippet himself.   
  
The full reality of what I'd done sunk in. I was led outside the Great Hall. On my way, I looked into the twin gaping faces of Hagrid and Cliona, and directly at Riddle's impassive smirk. Half the students were laughing at Niall, whose eyes were darting about rather dramatically on his frozen face; the other half just stared. I was escorted into Dumbledore's office and plunked unceremoniously onto a chair. Professor Caldecott was the first to speak. "I'm disappointed, Miss McGonagall. You are normally so well-behaved in my class."   
  
"Curses at a formal event!" Dippet raged. "I would have expected better from a prefect of this school!"   
  
I cut in desperately. "Sir – Headmaster – you don't know what those boys were—"   
  
"Miss McGonagall," Dumbledore said severely, "you of all students must know that there is no excuse for attacking another student." He looked up at the other two men. "If you will excuse us, I wish to work out a punishment with Miss McGonagall in private."   
  
Caldecott and Dippet headed out the door. "Sir, really, could I just explain?" My voice sounded very small, but I didn't let him answer me. "They had this terrible contest – and one of them called Myrtle a Mudblood – humiliating, really – I couldn't just let them do it – people shouldn't be allowed to do things like that – not that it hurt _me_ – but Myrtle and Cora are my friends."   
  
"Miss McGonagall," he sighed, not unkindly, "perhaps you should organize your thoughts before you speak."   
  
I took a deep breath and told him the whole story, from how the Hufflepuff boys seemed to be choosing odd dates for the ball, to what Tom Riddle had revealed to me, right to being forcibly removed from the Great Hall. I closed my eyes near the end; I knew I was in deep trouble. "I'm sorry I did it," I added at the end of the story, "but you've got to understand, I just couldn't let them get away with it."   
  
Dumbledore looked at me heavily. "Well, Miss McGonagall, I assure you that those boys will have to meet with their Head of House, and will probably regret their actions quite emphatically, but, in spite of what they did, the fact remains that you did attack two of them – with tremendous spirit, I might add," he chuckled. "I daresay they'll not try anything of this sort again. However, I must take twenty-five points from Gryffindor, and grant you a week's worth of detentions." He hesitated. "I must also suspend your position as a prefect for a month's time."   
  
I swallowed. "Yes, sir."   
  
"Bring your badge to me next term project session."   
  
"I will, sir." My heart was heavy.   
  
He smiled at me. "Don't look so gloomy, Miss McGonagall. I should think five years without getting into trouble is quite long enough – one really needs to raise some mischief once in a while. The sort of people who never get in trouble are often the ones who turn out the worst."   
  
I smiled a little at this. "Thank you, sir – er, I suppose. It's hard, never having been in trouble before."   
  
He made as if to lift an imaginary glass. "Here's to a second time."   
  
On my way back I saw Olive Hornby crying against a tapestry, with a Ravenclaw girl I didn't know trying to soothe her. I almost didn't stop, but then I thought better of it – I might have disliked her, but I knew how she was feeling. "Olive?" I ventured.   
  
She sniffed and wiped her face, then looked at me and assumed her customary expression of disdain. "What is it, Minerva?"   
  
"Don't let those fools get to you." I strode down the hallway and was almost out of sight when Olive called to me.   
  
"Minerva!"   
  
I stopped. "Yes?"   
  
"Thanks – I mean – yes, thanks. For what you did to them."   
  
I couldn't help it; I beamed at her. It was Olive Hornby, and tomorrow she would be back to making snide comments about Myrtle, but, for the moment, we were allies. "You're welcome."   
  
I shuffled back to the Gryffindor room expecting to be shunned for causing the loss of twenty-five points, but it was not so. As soon as I stepped through the portrait hole, I was immediately jumped upon by both Cliona and Cora, who were both smiling widely. Hagrid was there, too, tentatively patting Myrtle, who, predictably, was still sobbing on one of the chairs. A dozen other Gryffindor girls were there, and all of them clapped when they saw me.   
  
"Showed those buggers right up!" one girl cheered.   
  
"I expected it!" another shouted. "Gryffindor's better than Hufflepuff anyday!"   
  
Hagrid looked up and smiled at me as though I were some shining hero.   
  
"You shocked me there, Minerva," Cliona said. "In a good way." She drew me over to where four or five girls were sitting. "I'll admit we all thought you'd gone crazy – none of us knew what was going on, but as soon as that great idiot called Myrtle a – well, you know, that awful name – we knew something was up."   
  
"Hagrid got it out of Freddie Hull," Cora put in. "Scared him half to death, I think, but the whole story came out, Minerva, and I'm glad you gave them what they deserved." She looked down at her palms for a moment. "I swear, though, once I get my hands on Charles St. Clair—"   
  
"They've got it out for you now, though," Cliona warned. "Myrtle was crying in the corner and she overheard Niall telling Emmet—"   
  
"That there was no way – _hic_ – you were going to get away with that," Myrtle said hollowly from her chair, between sobs.   
  
Several impulses rose up within me, not the least of which was the intense desire to strangle Niall MacDougal with my Gryffindor scarf. "We'll see," I said evenly.   
  
"Don't you do anything stupid!" Cora exclaimed.   
  
Myrtle had temporarily ceased crying and hiccoughing, and was now looking at me with keen interest, as though she were gazing at a rescuer. "How did you know what they were planning?"   
  
"Er – Riddle told me." I looked at my wrist, which was a bit red and raw from where he had grabbed me. "And don't you say a thing about that, Myrtle – he was horrible about it."   
  
"I wasn't going to!"   
  
"Did Professor Dumbledore take yer badge away?" Hagrid asked gently; he alone saw the misery beneath my brave words. I had been hoping no one would ask.   
  
"Yeah. Only for a month, though."   
  
"You know," Cliona said thoughtfully, "we really ought to get some revenge on those twits – and, Minerva, since you're not a prefect for the moment, you ought to come up with something. Something really mean, y'know – like a Clothes-Transparency Charm on the whole team."   
  
"If they let it pass, I will, too," I said solemnly.   
  
"And if they don't?"   
  
I smiled at all them, feeling very much unlike myself. "Like I said – we'll see." And, with that, I picked up my skirts and went back to the dormitory alone, feeling oddly satisfied. In spite of everything, I felt happy, and glad of my friends, and I pulled aside my curtains and sat with Professor Dumbledore's words on my mind: _one really needs to cause some mischief once in a while_.   
  
They are words I have never forgotten.   
  
I was about to pull out my term project report again when Myrtle's round face peered past my thick curtains. She was crying again, but not in her usual theatrical manner – this time she was barely weeping at all, and I knew it was not for attention like it usually was. Wordlessly, I shifted on my bed and patted the space beside me. And, suddenly, listening to her cry no longer seemed like the duty of a prefect, but like the responsibility of a friend. I put an arm around her and drew her head against my shoulder, and we sat there, silently, while she sobbed.   
  
"Minerva," she sniffled, after a while. "Tell me – honestly – am I ugly?"   
  
I looked at her then, at the hair she'd so carefully styled, at the make-up, now streaming down her face, that she had so meticulously applied, at her eyes, unencumbered by her customary bottlebottom glasses. "No," I said fiercely, and in that second I realised it was true. "No, you're beautiful."   
  



	9. Life as a Cat

  
  
**Eight ~ Life as a Cat**   
  
Myrtle was slowly becoming less dramatic, and increasingly melancholy, as though the entire Valentine's Day Ball incident had left her mysteriously incomplete. While once her weeping had been something public, something done for attention and perhaps for sympathy, but it changed subtly, and now she stayed alone when she cried; while once she had protested outrageously whenever anyone insulted her, now she quietly accepted it as though it were her lot in life to be called ugly and myopic.   
  
I was the one she came to. Cliona, while she cared, had this habit of making jokes to defer serious conversation; Cora, while concerned, struggled herself and sometimes could not find the energy to talk to Myrtle. Sometimes at night, when everyone else was long asleep, Myrtle would shake me gently awake and bring me down to the common room, and we would speak at length. I learned more about her than anyone else knew. I had known, of course, that she was Muggle-born like myself, and that she had several siblings, but I soon knew that she was grievously poor, and spent summers working in a shop in London, that most of her clothes were sewn and mended manually – whether by thread or by magic. I learned that she grew up playing football and rugby with her brothers and that was why she thought she was so blocky and unfeminine. She actually grew to have quite an affinity for Snappers and would steal morsels of food for the plant, feeding it at intervals while we spoke into the night.   
  
I resumed my Animagus project with renewed vigour, practicing every other night and studying for the OWLs the other times; though I hated to admit it, being relieved of my prefect duties lessened the strain on me substantially. I attempted a full transformation again in early March, and that time I was able to sustain it for nearly fifteen minutes, and, after that, my times grew steadily longer until I was able to shift for a few hours or more. I was still not wholly comfortable with the cat, but it slowly grew to feel more like me in a very odd sense. I found that my thoughts ran disconnected sometimes in my feline form, and that I could ignore the appetities and habits common to a cat – once a mouse skittered across the floor of the Transfiguration room and I caught and killed it before I could think any better of it. My mind as a cat was in a precarious state between reason and animal intuition.   
  
Olive Hornby seemed to have forgotten any forays into civility I might have made with her. One fateful morning began with her walking casually by our table and grinding a bit of egg onto Myrtle's hair. "Maybe that'll help you learn, you great hulking duffer!" she called, and walked away cackling with her friends.   
  
Cliona, on the other hand, was walking around in a miserable haze, having convinced herself that Hufflepuff would defeat Ravenclaw in the next day's Quidditch match. "We'll have to play those great idiots in the finals, I know it," she wailed. "Ravenclaw's just not that good; their one Chaser dropped the bloody Quaffle last game for no reason except that it was getting too heavy under his arm. There wasn't even anyone nearby!"   
  
It was then when I got the idea – looking at Cliona in the throes of cursing the Hufflepuff Quidditch team. "You never can tell," I said slowly, slyly. "Ravenclaw might find that they're more talented than they think."   
  
Cliona gave me a surprised look. "You planning something, McGonagall?"   
  
"Wait and see," I told her cryptically. "Say, where do they keep their equipment?"   
  
She gave me a knowing grin and told me all about it.   
  
After dinner I found myself trying to assuage my worries through chess. In truth, I was having doubts about my prank; surely Professor Dumbledore would be able to figure out who had done it and I was doubtful that his slight respect for mischief would extend so far. I'd turned it all over and over in my head during my classes, to the point where Professor Binns had asked, "Are you well, Miss McGowan?" I played Hagrid and allowed him to beat me soundly – it was worth it just to see the delight on his grizzled face – and then distractedly let Cora feel her way to a victory.   
  
"I've got to study now, Minerva," Cora apologized after we'd finished.   
  
I started to gather up our pieces. Myrtle, who had been sitting and watching us play, helped me, and the little men snarled at her. "Gently, love, gently!" one of them pleaded desperately as she dropped it on its head.   
  
"You shouldn't let Hagrid win. Or her, either."   
  
I lifted my head to see Riddle standing across from me, looking angry as usual. "Don't watch me if it bothers you," I replied. "I like to play – it helps me think – and no one will want to play me if I win all the time. It's none of your concern."   
  
"You wouldn't stand a chance against some genuine competition."   
  
I shook my head with disdain. "Don't be vain, Riddle."   
  
"I'm only truthful."   
  
"Have a game, then," I invited with a scowl on my face. I don't know what made me say that just then, only that I felt reckless and dangerous with the encroaching night and the plans that went along with it, and that I wanted dearly to prove him wrong. "If you think you're smarter than I am, have a game. Use Cora's pieces."   
  
Cora's pieces looked up at him with something like fear on their little stone faces.   
  
"Fine," he snarled, and slid into the seat across from me.   
  
I started a bit; for all my challenging, I had expected him to snottily refuse. "I bet you've never played anyone with real skill," I said before I could think better of it. "That group of Slytherin sycophants you keep company with certainly aren't the brightest students ever to grace these doors."   
  
He snorted. "Of course, McGonagall – and Rubeus Hagrid is the absolute pinnacle of intelligence." Deftly, he moved out his knight. "Play."   
  
I did, countering by moving out a pawn. We played the game in silence, occasionally darting glances at one another, both of us frowning. A small knot of people surrounded us – a few of Riddle's aforementioned sycophants, a pair of Hufflepuff second-years, and Myrtle. Her covert (and not-so-covert) looks at Riddle were disturbing; she studied him in profile as though watching a master chess player at work. I tried my best to ignore her, making moves quickly to annoy him and his slow, deliberate method of playing.   
  
The game ended quite unsatisfactorily.   
  
"Stalemate," Riddle hissed, looking furious.   
  
"I must be tired," I snapped, and left the Great Hall before he could answer me.   
  
When everyone was asleep, I used my key to get into the Transfiguration room, so no one would see me, and changed into the tabby. By then I was at the point where I was able to hold the form for some time, even though it was still rather disorienting. My wand wouldn't transform into fur along with my clothes, so I bent and held it in my mouth like a dog fetching a stick. I sneaked through the hallways and dodged any ghosts who might have seen me, and I made my way out to the Quidditch pitch in the dead of the night.   
  
A simple _Alohomora_ charm allowed me access into the locker room, where the teams' robes and equipment lay untouched and unguarded, blue in the early spring moonlight. I transformed and performed the appropriate charms as quickly as I could, and found that I was quite maliciously and mischieviously looking forward to seeing the results of my work. "That'll cheer you up, Cliona," I said aloud before changing back into the cat and slipping out.   
  
On the way back to the classroom, I saw something very curious. There was a long, thin stream of spiders steadily pouring out the window, lined up like ants in a procession. I swatted my paw at them, mostly with bewilderment, but they continued onward as though driven by some exterior force. I shrugged (as much as a feline can shrug). I had to get back to the classroom.   
  
I nudged my way in, but before I could transform back safely and get back to Gryffindor Tower, I heard the voice of Professor Dumbledore echoing through the cavernous hallway that led to the classroom. It was well past midnight and I knew I'd be in trouble if Professor Dumbledore found me up and out of bed, especially with my suspension. I quickly darted behind one of the thick two-person desk and lay down with my paws tucked beneath me. I could feel my whiskers trembling and, in spite of everything, I could not help but wonder at the oddness of the sensation.   
  
It did not occur to me until it was too late that Professor Dumbledore, while admittedly eccentric, would not be talking to himself in the hallway. Before I could even think, he strode into the room – followed by a thin, lanky man in royal purple robes. I would have gasped if that were possible; it was Julius Applethorne, the Minister of Magic.   
  
"But you were a brilliant researcher," the Minister was arguing. He closed the door behind them; I had no hope of darting out. "The dragon's blood and all; you're famous. Surely you must have some inkling of how he's done it—"   
  
"I don't," Dumbledore said curtly. "Unless there are other matters to discuss—"   
  
"The girl, of course."   
  
"Which girl?"   
  
"You know perfectly well. The student. The one in training." He looked around the room quickly. "The Animagus."   
  
"She—"   
  
"What form has the student taken?" the Minister pressed.   
  
"A house cat," Professor Dumbledore said. There was an uncomfortable tilt to his voice. "She is not yet fully ready," he added quickly. "I don't think she has quite learned how to separate her mind from the beast's mind. She's been working—"   
  
The Minister held up his hand. "Spare me, Albus. Please inform me as soon as you feel that she has reached her full potential."   
  
"I shall." His voice sounded different – shaky and wrong-footed. In a flash, the Minister was gone, and Professor Dumbledore stood alone in front of the door, frozen like a statue and frowning.   
  
I made a quick decision and turned back into a human before I could talk myself out of it. I needed to know what was happening, and even the fact that I could get in trouble wasn't important in that split second. "Professor?"   
  
He started. "What – what are you doing here, Miss McGonagall?"   
  
"I should ask the same," I retorted. I thought of a lie quickly. "I have no classes in the morning tomorrow, and I figured that my free access to this room extended to all hours of the day. Especially since I haven't – what was it? – quite learned how to separate my mind from the cat's."   
  
"You heard everything."   
  
"Enough. I'm sorry, Professor," I said, and even I was shocked at the acid in my tone, "but not being a prefect in the last two weeks has granted me a certain dislike for decorum. I have been spending months documenting this project, documenting a false project to cover up the real one, and having my strength and health tested by transformation after transformation, and all the while I have been doing this without question. And now I find you conferring with the Minister of Magic in the middle of the night, talking about me and my_ potential_. I demand to know what's going on." I took a deep breath. "Oh, I should never have agreed to this in the first place without knowing."   
  
Professor Dumbledore only looked at me for perhaps a minute, then moved his gaze away, as if he were ashamed. He sagged against his desk and made a beckoning motion with his hand. "Please, sit. I should not have kept you in the dark."   
  
"I'll stand."   
  
"I would speak to you as an adult, Minerva," he said wearily, still not looking at me. His use of my first name did not escape me. "When you came to me after Christmas with the news that you might be leaving, I was aghast. I tried to counsel you as best I could, and since then I have felt quite physically ill about myself. You see, your value here extends far beyond your attachment to Hogwarts and your love of learning."   
  
"I'm afraid I don't understand."   
  
"The Ministry needs you. More specifically, they need your skills as an Animagus."   
  
"I knew that. But why?" I felt chilled, but surely I hadn't expected the reasons to be benign? I had blithely gone on training, conveniently forgetting – or perhaps ignoring –that the Ministry had wanted Professor Dumbledore to start the project.   
  
He removed his spectacles and polished them at length, as though he were trying to find a way to phrase what he would say next. "Have you heard of Grindelwald?"   
  
"Yes, of course. He's the watch and warden of Azkaban prison. His school portrait is on the wall leading up to our dormitories – he was a Gryffindor round sixty years ago." I said this all in a very cautious tone; I was unsure of where this conversation was heading. It occurred to me then that Professor Dumbledore must have been schoolmates with old Grindelwald, but I didn't ask.   
  
"That's correct, except he is no longer the watch and warden of Azkaban."   
  
"What? But that's ridiculous – surely the _Daily Prophet_ would have reported a change in post."   
  
Professor Dumbledore shook his head somberly. "I expect that they don't even know. I believe we've all underestimated Grindelwald's intelligence. He's been off post for more than a year, and no one knows where he is now. The Ministry's best Aurors are—"   
  
"Hang on," I interrupted. "_Aurors_? What has he done?"   
  
He chose not to answer that question. "Minerva, you must understand that I never intended for it to go this far. The Ministry has been equally as secretive with me as I have with you, and I would have never agreed to allow you to undertake this – this project – if I had known what they wanted."   
  
"I don't understand. What do they want?"   
  
He sighed again. "They want a brilliant mind in Transfiguration, someone bright and dedicated enough to complete an Animagus transformation, and they want someone young enough, someone relatively unquestioning, and that is you. They want you to finish your training this year and then work as a spy against Grindelwald. In your Animagus form you will be able to access places even the best wizards can't get to."   
  
I stood there silently, unable to process all of this at once.   
  
"I told you at the outset that you would not be obligated to do anything. That stands."   
  
"But—" I picked one question from the thousands that seemed to be swimming round inside my head. "What has he done? Grindelwald, I mean?"   
  
"Do you remember talking about the Muggle war? Telling me that you wished Muggles were as civilised as wizards and witches? Well, we seem to be equally savage in matters of warfare. Grindelwald has disappeared into the east, and, by what accounts we have, he is gathering an army there."   
  
"For – what purposes?"   
  
"We don't quite know. Our best guess is this. You see, Grindelwald was a Muggle-born and—"   
  
There was at that moment a loud _crash_ out in the corridor. Feeling more than a little spooked, I sprang to the doorway and peered outside into the darkness. I caught a glimpse of something, the tail of end of something, vanishing. "Someone's there," I whispered.   
  
Instantly, Professor Dumbledore pushed past me, his blue robes swishing and disappearing into the dark of the hallway. Nervously, I followed him. There was a sick, dreadful lurch in my stomach, partly from fear and partly because I was shell-shocked over what had been revealed to me.   
  
"Do you see anything?"   
  
"No, there's nothing here," I whispered. Inexplicably, I though of the creeping trail of spiders I'd seen, leaving through the window.   
  
"Yet that sound—" Dumbledore scanned the corridor. I could barely see him; it was too dim for me to make out anything but his dark form against the equal blackness of the hallway.   
  
"Perhaps – the castle shifting?"   
  
He either ignored me or didn't hear me. "_Lumos_," he whispered, and a brilliant white beam of light shot out of the tip of his wand. He held his lit wand up to the wall, walking slowly, examining each piece of wall and floor, until he gasped – actually gasped. Scattered on the ground was the source of the noise – a broken statue, fragmented around the floor into dust and shards. He'd come to a low spot where three words – one short sentence scrawled in high red letters – glistened against the old stone:   
  
_The chamber wakes._   
  



	10. A Decision at Easter

  
  
**Nine ~ A Decision at Easter**   
  
By morning the broken statue and the writing on the wall were gone – Professor Dumbledore had gone to Headmaster Dippet, and together the two of them had arranged for its surreptitious removal. I had not been told expressly to keep it a secret, but I did, for I felt that if both Dumbledore and the Headmaster saw fit to leave it alone, then I should not go broadcasting what we'd seen all around Hogwarts. I reasoned to myself that it was probably just a mean prank, meant to frighten, for neither Professor Dumbledore or I knew what could be meant by a _chamber_.   
  
I was more concerned, actually, with hearing the rest of Professor Dumbledore's explanation for the existence of my unusual term project, but I had no opportunity to speak to Professor Dumbledore in the following few days, first with Hogwarts being caught up in Quidditch fever – the match of Ravenclaw against Hufflepuff was an important one – and then my scheduled trip home for Easter.   
  
That particular Quidditch match is one I will always remember with fondness. I was sitting in the stands, bunched up with Cliona, Cora, and Myrtle, and I was twisting my hands and trying to hide my anticipation.   
  
Ravenclaw came out first, looking somber and dedicated in their elegant blue and bronze uniforms. And then it was Hufflepuff's turn.   
  
There was a stunned silence as Emmet Fawcett led his team out onto the pitch. Each of them wore a Quidditch robe of such a vile, glowing electric pink that some people had to look away. It might have even made Gilderoy Lockhart cringe. Emmet's face was almost the colour of the robes, as were the faces of the other players, and seven identicals scowls played out across their features.   
  
Professor Caldecott, who was refereeing the match, looked at them with his mouth agape. "Boys – what's the meaning of this?"   
  
Emmet looked at the rest of his team, asking an unspoken question, then turned back to Professor Caldecott. "We forfeit," he said gravely.   
  
"Forfeit?" Caldecott exclaimed. "You can't forfeit!"   
  
"Someone's tampered with our robes," Emmet contested, his voice surprisingly like a whine. "We can't reverse the charm – it's too good." Just then, he turned and glared straight at me in the stands. A part of me froze up, but some other inexplicably wonderful part of me managed to flash him a wide, insincere grin and wave.   
  
"You ought to blow him a kiss," Cliona said, leaning over me excitedly.   
  
"Next time," Cora said from my other side. I could tell by the expressions on their faces that they had already mentally identified the author of this particular prank, and, not a second later, Cora whispered into my ear, "Don't worry, Minerva. I'm not going to tell."   
  
Since none of the Hufflepuff players were injured or otherwise engaged, they were denied the forfeit and forced to play through – and it was one of the greatest Quidditch games I have ever had the fortune to witness, and one of the most spectacular losses ever suffered by Hufflepuff House. I won't ever forget the sight of those bright pink robes swishing through the air. Charles St. Clair was knocked off his broom by a Bludger early in the game, and it was particularly satisfying to see Niall take a rough dive for the Snitch, only to hit the ground. Hard.   
  
"Psychological warfare," Cliona breathed.   
  
"Brilliant," Myrtle added.   
  
The final score was two hundred and twenty to forty, and Ravenclaw was in the final match against Gryffindor. When it was over, the four of us tumbled into the Gryffindor common room laughing so hard that our sides ached. Cora had abandoned all sense of decorum and was lying on the floor, chuckling and gasping all at once. "Did – did you – oh, my, their faces!" she wheezed incoherently, clutching at her stomach. "I – almost died!"   
  
Cliona was wearing a wide, triumphant grin, no doubt mentally crowing over Hufflepuff's defeat. "How'd you manage that, McGonagall?"   
  
"Yeah, how'd you do it?" Myrtle asked, eyes shining. For the first time in a long time she was beaming.   
  
"Why do you automatically assume it was me?" I asked loftily. I was actually quite nervous. It would not take a large degree of sleuthing for Professor Dumbledore to figure out that it had been me – especially after my surprising presence in the Transfiguration room – but there was no way I'd confide this to any of them. "It might have been divine intervention."   
  
"Sure, sure," Cliona said. "God, that was brilliant! I'm going to treasure that forever!"   
  
We moved our merriment into our dormitory, where Cora managed to rustle up a box of sweets she'd been hiding and Cliona dug into her secret stash of Butterbeer. "This is really something that needs to be celebrated," she announced, uncorking a bottle and passing it to me. "No matter how it got done."   
  
"Must've been magic, I tell you." I shrugged, and realised that my shoulders felt a lot lighter than they should have. "Oh, for God's sake, I left my bag in the common room. Be back in a minute."   
  
I saw my bookbag lying on one of the big overstuffed chairs – and I saw something else. Kneeling by the fireplace, prone as though he were praying or repenting, was Rubeus Hagrid. And I could hear him crying.   
  
It was only then that I remembered he had not been at the Quidditch game – how could I have forgotten? Surely I should have noticed the absence of such a great, hulking boy. But I had been nervous and too absorbed in myself. I went over to where he was crouching, remembering the night I had found his secret room and the promise I'd made. I placed a careful hand on the middle of his back. "Hagrid?" I whispered, as gently as I could. "What is it?"   
  
"Dead," he choked.   
  
"Dead?" I sucked in my breath. "Who's dead?"   
  
He turned to look fully at me, then lifted his head to observe the rest of the common room, which was abandoned. "Yeh remember where I keep my critters?" he asked in loud whisper. "I wen' this mornin' and more were dead – I dunno what happened."   
  
"You brought more in after the first ones were killed?"   
  
"Yeh." He gave a sniff and wiped at his eyes. "Poor little buggers."   
  
"But you're keeping that other creature in there! Hagrid, I—"   
  
"Don' you say it, Miss Minerva!" he howled, suddenly uncaring of whoever might hear him. "Don' you say it, too! Aragog wouldn't hurt nobody!"   
  
"It was just a possibility," I said gently. "Listen, Hagrid, sometimes – the way you are with creatures – you think of them much too kindly at times. You look at something dangerous and you see something akin to a fluffy kitten. It's not that way with animals. No matter how you might see them, there are always ones that will bite you. And sometimes animals'll attack other animals."   
  
"Ye're wrong," he sniffed.   
  
I patted him at the back. "I might be, at that. You ought to find out for yourself – but please, Hagrid, don't do anything that could end badly. I know Professor Dumbledore lets you keep your – er, pets – here, but that doesn't mean you shouldn't use a little caution."   
  
"I know, Miss Minerva. _He_ said the same thing. _He_ said they was gonna die."   
  
My ears perked up. "He? Who's _he_, Hagrid?"   
  
But Hagrid had gone red and was already standing up to leave, looking very much as though he would have liked to take that comment back. He looked down, so that his face was concealed by his grizzled mass of hair, and started to shuffle away.   
  
"Do you want me to get Snappers, and we can talk some more?" I tried desperately.   
  
"No, Miss Minerva, yeh've done enough, thank yeh." And he disappeared into the boys' dormitory before I could get to him.   
  
I went home for the weekend the day after – it was Easter. We had never celebrated it much as a family and I was dreading my homecoming. I took the ordinary train back home and I was surprised at the town; everything was empty and ghostly, and the twenty-minute walk to the farm left me completely alone – I saw no one else.   
  
It was a very grey day, back at the farm, and eerily quiet compared to Christmas. All of the families tucked into our house and barn had left for even safer places. Only my family remained. Kitty was outside waiting for me when I arrived; she was dressed somberly in a black peacoat and navy scarf, looking years older than she had in December.   
  
"Brought you dangerous sweets," I said quietly, and at this she pulled me into a hug and began to weep.   
  
Inside there was a large dinner set, the sort of thing I had not expected after receiving letters from Kitty commenting on the repulsive nature of rationed food. Both my mum and my dad were sitting at their places, looking more like life-sized wooden dolls than real people; Kitty sat down, her face still red and straining. I knew what was coming, from having kept the secret with my sister, and I braced myself, eating in silence, moving the fork around on my plate. I had come to a decision, but it had not been an easy one, and already I could foresee pillars of regret on the horizon, but there would be no changing my mind.   
  
"Minerva," my mother began, "I don't know how much you get of our news at that – that place – but surely you must know something, from all the people who were here at Christmas." She swallowed, awkward, unable to phrase things the way she wanted them. "Your father and I – we'll we've made a decision. In two months—"   
  
"I know," I said flatly, deciding on impulse to spare her the misery. "Kitty wrote me."   
  
"Oh." This was said with soft shock, and a darting glance at Kitty, who picked miserably at her potatoes and would not look up.   
  
"And I'm not coming with you." As soon as I said that, it sounded far too stark and naked to leave alone, so I covered it up with more words. "I am safe here, you know – there are spells and things that prevent the war from ever coming to us – and there are things I can study at Hogwarts that no other school will offer." I did not say anything about the Animagus transformations. "I can't go. It isn't as though we won't ever see each other again – I hope you'll come back, when this is all over."   
  
"All right," my father said. There was no pleading, no talking of the beautiful things we could find in America, nothing. I had at least expected something, but then I realized that they had known my decision before even asking me, and this was why they had hesitated in telling me, for they did not want to hear it. Without my knowledge, an invisible wedge had shaped itself between my family and I, thickening, all because of my magic and my living in a world which I then realized was wholly different from their own.   
  
"I – I'm sorry," I choked, and then I was crying, and I had to get up from the table and go into my old room.   
  
Kitty came in a half an hour later and instead of saying anything right away, she sat down on the bedcovers beside me and rubbed at my back, the younger sister taking the role of the older. I almost could not resist the urge to run down into the kitchen sobbing, apologizing, saying that of course I would go with them.   
  
Almost.   
  
The rest of the Easter holiday passed depressingly enough. On the next day, Good Friday, we fasted; on the Sunday we made a half-hearted attempt at feasting. We attended church and I noticed all the things Kitty had said – barely anyone was left, and none of the boys we had known growing up were there. Dead in battle, or halfway to getting there. I had brought some of my textbooks with me and spent most of the time shut up in my room, studying for OWLs.   
  
Before leaving, I kissed each of them goodbye in turn, and lingered the longest at Kitty, but on that Monday, I was glad to be back at Hogwarts. I told no one that they were gone – of course Cliona and Cora and Myrtle knew from the letter – but there was something different about it actually happening, something far more awful, and I found I could not form the words to describe my decision, for I always came out sounding hollow and shallow, or else I would say it so true that I would begin to weep.   
  
It also happened that on that very Monday night I had one of my regularly scheduled meetings with Professor Dumbledore. I was looking forward to it and dreading it all at once. I knew it would not be like one of our ordinary sessions – me practicing, him observing and sometimes grading Transfiguration papers – and it seemed as though he felt the same way, for when I got there he had two chairs set up with a table between them and a tea setting waiting for my arrival.   
  
I sat down and poured a drink. "I spoke to my family this weekend," I said flatly.   
  
"What did you say?"   
  
"I told them I wasn't going with them," I said. This, too, sounded foolish by itself, so I pressed on. "And I won't lie to you – it's partly because I do want to see this Animagus project through to completion. I will even do the work the Ministry asks me to do." It sounds foolish, but I would have done anything; my greatest passion at that age was a thirst for knowledge of all things magical, especially those as prestigious as Animagi. "But I want to hear everything you know first – no interruptions, no half-truths. If I am to be part of this, I need to know what I'm getting into, and the Minister can go hang if he just wants an easily-manipulated puppet." This last bit came out with unexpected vehemence.   
  
To my surprise, Dumbledore chuckled. "I'm sure Julius Applethorne would appreciate being told to go hang."   
  
"Forgive me, sir, but I would appreciate the opportunity to tell him."   
  
"You may just get it," he said cryptically. "But very well. I will begin at the beginning, Miss McGonagall. As I was telling you before – prior to the interruption – Grindelwald is no longer in his place at Azkaban. We suspect he is somewhere in the east. He is a Muggle-born and he feels that his rights and privileges as a wizard have been long oppressed, and, frankly, we think he's gone quite mad."   
  
"Mad?"   
  
He took a sip of tea. "Rumour has it that he is – gathering an army, of sorts. He is a skilled magician; in fact, it is with his devious wards and charms that we were able to exert control over the Azkaban Dementors in the first place."   
  
"I didn't know that."   
  
"It's not in the histories," he said curtly. "At any rate, we don't really know what Grindelwald is up to. Six months ago, after discovering that he'd left his post, the Magical Law Enforcement Squad discovered several written tracts in his hand. All of them were rather – gory, for lack of a better word – describing the deaths of pureblooded wizards and insane plans for battles and such."   
  
"So – Grindelwald – he fancies himself a sort of hero, I suppose? A revolutionary?"   
  
"I would imagine so."   
  
"A hero for the Muggle-borns," I mused aloud.   
  
Professor Dumbledore nodded. "I know that you, too, are Muggle-born, Miss McGonagall, and I am not fool enough to think that you have encountered no prejudice, but you must understand that we are dealing with a madman rather than a supporter of equal rights."   
  
"I do understand," I said, a bit crossly. Surely I couldn't justify killing on either side.   
  
"Good," he said. I was suddenly aware that he seemed very old, very tired. "So your part in all of this is simple – as I said, we are going on rumours and mad evidence. We know very little of Grindelwald's actions, but reason dictates that he will wait to strike until he is ready. He may be mad, but I knew him, and he is quite methodical, quite deliberate – the sort of person who does not do things unless he knows for sure that the outcome will be the one he wants. So, for now, the Ministry is building intelligence. And, Miss McGonagall, though you did hear from the Minister that he wants someone easily manipulated, the fact is that there are very few witches and wizards who are capable of the sort of dedication that it takes to become an Animagus. And we need spies. What we've truly been doing, Miss McGonagall, is training you for a career in espionage."   
  
"I see." I sat silent for a few minutes, thinking it over. I had never given much thought to what I would do after getting out Hogwarts – though my careers sessions were coming up – but I had always assumed, in the back of my mind, that I would end up doing something purely academic, something to satisfy my intellectual curiosity. But I felt a strange pull, and though I could not identify it then, I can now. I was _needed_ – for my skills and my intellect – and, admittedly, it was flattering.   
  
"And do you still say yes?"   
  
"I do." Let it never be said that I was a coward.   
  
"Very well," he sighed. "The project will continue as before, with you preparing me status reports and the false reports to go with them. Our meetings, too, will continue as usual – except you may find that some members of the Ministry of Magic will want to join us. There are some Aurors who are quite interested in meeting you."   
  
"I should like to meet them." I wasn't sure if this was the truth or not. "Am I dismissed?"   
  
"Yes." He looked very distracted, and was resting one hand against the side of his head, almost knocking his scarlet hat off. "You need not treat me as a professor while we are here. In this context, we are colleagues."   
  
Colleagues. I rolled the word around in my mind and decided it was altogether too strange for me. I nodded and gave him a thin smile. "All the same, sir, I would like to have an established sense of order and rank. I don't want this to seem too surreal."   
  
"Ah. As you wish." I had turned to go, and I was almost out the door when he spoke again. "One more thing, Miss McGonagall."   
  
"Yes, sir?"   
  
"I thoroughly enjoyed the exhibition of your skills at last week's Quidditch match."   
  
I believe I turned a thousand shades of red. "Er – sir, I—"   
  
He reached into his robes, standing and striding over, and drew something from his pocket, then pressed it into my hand as I stammered. I looked down; it was my prefect badge. "Just be certain that it was the end of your mischief-making," he advised, and then he was gone, leaving me open-mouthed and embarrassed.   
  



	11. Suspicions

  
** Ten ~ Suspicions**   
  
May turned into June; Hogwarts began a frenzy of exam preparation. Myrtle in particular became focused on the OWLs; she spent days and nights reading and making notes. In any given moment, I could have found half a dozen scraps of parchment tucked into her robes, containing Potions recipes or Arithmancy equations or dreadful facts in History of Magic.   
  
My prefect duties became more troublesome; the OWLs made the students far more quarrelsome. I caught Cliona fighting with a Ravenclaw girl over whether or not a Deflating Draught contained an infusion of hazelwort, of all things, and I had to dock points from her. She sulkily told me she wouldn't be speaking to me, but forgot about it by the evening meal – in typical Cliona fashion.   
  
I myself was finding it difficult to make time for the extra OWL studying that came with the end of the year; more disturbingly, I could not really bring myself to care. I could only think of Kitty and my family, and of all that Professor Dumbledore had revealed to me the night I'd agreed to work for the Ministry. Still, I wrote extra notes whenever I could, and withdrew extra books on Charms from the library. I barely bothered to study Transfiguration; it was my favourite, and there was really no need.   
  
By the twelfth of June, the day before the OWLs began, I was far too exhausted to think on anything. At breakfast that day, Cora and I sat miserably playing chess, both of us too tired and discouraged to do any more real studying. Snappers was with us; I was periodically feeding him bits of food as we played.   
  
"Incantation and wand movement for a Levitation Charm?" Cora asked boredly.   
  
"_Wingardium Leviosa_. Swish and flick," I answered quickly, moving out my knight to take one of her pawns. "Runes used to generate invisibility magic?"   
  
"Damned if I know," Cora moaned.   
  
"They won't ask that, anyway," I soothed. "That's sixth-year, I think."   
  
"I wish I just knew a little more about what would be on the exams."   
  
"Don't we all." I plucked a bit of bread and jam from my breakfast and tossed it at Snappers.   
  
Cora watched with interest. "He's gotten quite good at catching."   
  
"I know," I beamed. Snappers, too, twisted his mouth into an odd little plant-smile. "I've been training him." I tugged off another bit of bread and threw it straight into the air; Snappers promptly untangled himself and caught it, then bowed repeatedly.   
  
"Show-off," Cora chuckled.   
  
"A Plainswell Pitcher in school? You're as bad as that oaf Hagrid, bringing in things that don't belong here."   
  
I craned my neck up to see Riddle, wearing his trademark sneer, his knot of nameless Slytherins behind him.   
  
"It's a vegetarian," I said stupidly – and then the full weight of what he'd said sunk in. I rose from my chess game, leaving Snappers with Cora, and followed Riddle. "Hang on," I snarled, getting to my feet. "What did you mean, just then? I'm as bad as that oaf Hagrid? What do _you_ know about Hagrid?"   
  
"Go away, McGonagall," he said in a bored voice, but I picked up something else in those short words – he'd made a mistake. He strode away but I moved just as swiftly, keeping pace beside him.   
  
"I won't go away. What did you mean?" I abruptly recalled seeing the two of them together, Riddle whispering to Hagrid, and Hagrid looking more like a stricken child than a comrade. I grabbed the cuff of Riddle's robes and forced him to stop. "If you're doing anything to hurt him—"   
  
He turned to his friends. "Go," he hissed.   
  
"But, Vol—" one began.   
  
"_Go_." There was no arguing with him.   
  
The Slytherins shot me a collective look of distrust and went shuffling off. Riddle looked down at me in distaste, and, deliberately, he plucked the cuff of his robes out of my grasp. "Don't_ pull_ at me, McGonagall," he said severely.   
  
"What did that boy call you just now?" I asked, momentarily distracted. "Vol—something?"   
  
"A nickname," Riddle said evasively. "Nothing of your concern. And as for your friend Hagrid, you would do well to warn him to stand clear of me – in fact, that might be a warning you should heed yourself."   
  
I raised my eyebrows. "I think you're up to something, Riddle. And I'm going to find out exactly what it is."   
  
"You'll find nothing, McGonagall." He stared directly into my eyes, willing me to look away; I would not do it. "If you know what's good for you, you'll stay out of my affairs. You don't want to get hurt."   
  
"Don't you _dare_ threaten me."   
  
He gave a peremptory shrug. "Only a warning, McGonagall – only a warning."   
  
I watched his retreating form with narrowed eyes. Even then, I did not respond well to threats, and I was not about to let Riddle hurt Hagrid. That night, I crept into the Transfiguration classroom and transformed into the tabby. It was still early enough for students to be milling around in the corridors, and I knew that Professor Dumbledore would be furious if he caught me, but I had to take the risk.   
  
I found Riddle near the front entrance and tailed him for nearly an hour before he went to where Hagrid's hiding-place was. He didn't bother to knock; he only burst in as though he had been a welcome guest for decades. I curled up outside the closed door to listen to what they were saying.   
  
"Yeh don't understand. I can't be rid of 'im, not ever. He's really a lovin' creature, always real polite, never attacks any of the other ones."   
  
"Oh? And what of the night when you returned to find them all dead?"   
  
"That wasn't Aragog. Can't have been Aragog."   
  
"That's no loving creature, Hagrid. That's an Acromantula."   
  
I nearly jumped. An Acromantula? Was that the rasping creature in the crate? Surely Hagrid would never be _that_ foolish—   
  
"I know," Hagrid answered; his voice was fairly a wail. "I jus' can't get rid of 'im, yeh know. He's gotten used to me, an' he wouldn't hurt nobody, Tom – I swear it."   
  
Riddle's answering voice was cool and collected – a stark contrast to Hagrid. "I've kept this secret long enough. You have to be rid of it soon. You know it's dangerous."   
  
"I'm only dangerous to those who threaten me," a low, croaking voice interjected.   
  
"Aragog! Yeh stay out of this!" Hagrid said fiercely.   
  
"You see?" Riddle said. "It's a vicious creature. I'll not keep this secret any longer – not unless you do me another favour."   
  
"What? What's that?"   
  
"One of your – _ahem_ – friends has made it her business of late to pry into my business. I would appreciate it if you called her off, so to speak. I have secrets that no one would benefit from knowing."   
  
"One of my friends?"   
  
"I think you know who I'm referring to."   
  
"Yeh mean – Miss Minerva? She's botherin' yeh?" There was a note of pride in Hagrid's voice.   
  
"She certainly is." Riddle snorted. "I would think twice, Rubeus, about endangering your friends as well as yourself. You may not care about expulsion, but I'm sure that our dear McGonagall would have a fit if she could never return to her beloved Hogwarts. Keep her out of my way," he growled.   
  
"I will, Tom – jus' don' make me give up Aragog, really, he wouldn't hurt—"   
  
"Enough. I can't hear any more of this rot."   
  
I barely had enough time to skitter back down the corridor before Riddle exited Hagrid's small, secret room. I scrambled into the nearest washroom, which was thankfully empty, and transformed back into a human. I had to stand still for a moment, until my breathing returned to normal. Riddle had said _another_ favour. Had he been blackmailing Hagrid all year? Why hadn't Hagrid told me?   
  
I gritted my teeth. Of course, I knew the answer to that. Hagrid was afraid of Riddle.   
  
I pushed out of the washroom and practically ran right into Riddle – of all the terrible luck. "Shouldn't you be studying?" I asked quickly, with a sneer – I couldn't let him know that I'd heard his conversation.   
  
"You need it more than I do, McGonagall," he shot back. He looked at me for a second more – piercingly, chillingly – as though he wanted to say something else, but then he thought better of it and went stalking down the corridor alone.   
  
I stood stock-still, my fists clenched at my sides. It was all I could do not to run after him and punch him as hard as I could. All I could think of was poor, confused Hagrid – even though the idea of him having such a huge spider frightened me, I was more disturbed by Riddle's vehemence in insisting that I keep away from him. What secrets did he have?   
  
"I'm going to find out whether you like it or not, you great bastard," I whispered to myself. I hated him so much in that moment that it almost knocked me over; I'd never before felt so strongly about disliking someone, but there had always been something about him, hadn't there? I should have known to trust my instincts more, I should have swallowed my pride.   
  
After he was out of sight, I went back to the Transfiguration classroom, to retrieve my bookbag and notes. Professor Dumbledore was there, sitting at his desk. It was on the tip of my tongue to tell him about Riddle – but then I would have to explain about Hagrid and the Acromantula, and the fact that Hagrid could be expelled – and, of course, the fact that _I_ could be expelled – kept me judiciously silent.   
  
"Good evening, Miss McGonagall," Professor Dumbledore said. He had a big book open in front of him, and there were several others stacked up beside it; all of them looked very old and very fragile.   
  
"Good evening," I said, shouldering my bookbag. "You look – busy."   
  
He removed his little spectacles and polished them with his sleeve; I could see his eyes were tired. "It's the message from the other night – the Chamber. The chamber wakes. The Headmaster seems to have forgotten all about it, but it's not something I can ignore. What if it was a warning?"   
  
I wrinkled my forehead. "A warning about what, sir?"   
  
"I'm not quite certain." Dumbledore glanced down at the heavy tome in front of him, replacing his spectacles. His fingers traced along some words; I was too far away to read them. "Have you heard of the Chamber of Secrets, Miss McGonagall?"   
  
"That silly story people tell to scare the first-years? The monster underground, so to speak?" I couldn't believe that he put any stock in it.   
  
"That silly story," he confirmed. "Some of the old histories I've been reading indicate that it may be more than a fairy tale. It's certainly conceivable – there are rooms in this old castle that no one has seen for hundreds of years, and that passage up in the east wing is something different every time you go up there. Why, the last time I was there, it was decorated like an Egyptian palace. Sphinxes and sarcophagi – or is it sarcophaguses?"   
  
I was accustomed to his tendency to ramble, and knew how to defer it. "So you think that the monster in the Chamber of Secrets is writing messages on the walls?" I asked doubtfully.   
  
He smiled. "It sounds so ridiculous when you say it that way, Miss McGonagall – but we cannot afford to dismiss it. I just wish that Armando would exercise more caution—" He stopped, as though only just remembering himself. "I apologize. I should not say such things to you; I forget, sometimes, that you are a student first, and not foremost a colleague."   
  
"It's okay," I said quietly.   
  
"I only feel – I only feel as though something terrible is going to happen. Call it intuition, I suppose – or perhaps I'm simply a paranoid old man."   
  
"Better to be vigilant than blind, I suppose. Though I would hesitate to leap to an old scary story for an explanation."   
  
"Indeed." He looked up at me then, and gave another small smile. "Don't let me keep you; I'm sure you've got OWLs to be concerned about. History of Magic tomorrow, right? Binns can be terrible."   
  
I gaped. "_You_ were taught by Professor Binns?"   
  
"I think Godric Gryffindor might have been taught by Professor Binns."   
  
I grinned a little at that. Since accepting the idea that I would be an intrepid spy, I had forgotten to give much thought to anything else relating to careers, and History of Magic was really my least favourite subject. With everything that had happened – Hagrid and Kitty and everything else – I could not particularly bring myself to care about whether or not I got straight Os. "Good night, sir."   
  
Upon returning to the common room, I was shocked to find Cliona, Cora, and Myrtle sitting together on the floor – not studying for OWLs as they all had been for the past month, but simply relaxing.   
  
"Potions and History of Magic tomorrow," Cliona announced. "We've decided we've had too much of it all, so tonight—" she rose and took me by the hand, "we forget that OWLs even exist. We eat, we drink, we be merry – and don't you correct my grammar, Minerva, I know it's rubbish already – but first—"   
  
"But first!" Myrtle shouted.   
  
"We dance!" Cora finished.   
  
The three of them whooped all at once, like little kids playing, and proceeded to dance a jig all around the common room, much to the chagrin of those who were actually trying to study last-minute. Myrtle and Cliona pulled me forwards, forcing me to dance with them, and I found that I could, throwing my arms up in the air along with them, crowing and singing, forgetting all about every last thing that had been bothering me.   
  
Later on, when everyone else was asleep, after we'd gorged ourselves and danced and each loudly confessed that we'd be the worst of the four in OWLs, Myrtle volunteered an idea. "I think we ought to make a pact."   
  
"A pact?" Cora's interest was piqued. "How do you mean?"   
  
"Like a friendship pact," Myrtle elaborated. "Come thick or thin, come tough OWLs or bad charms or misspent Valentine's Day balls." She was in an unusually good mood that evening; her eyes nearly sparkled with the idea of a pact. "I'd like to know that you three'll always be around to bail me out."   
  
"And you need the most bailing," Cliona added with a smirk.   
  
"Hush," Cora said. "I think she's right; we should do it."   
  
"Hands in a circle, d'you reckon?"   
  
"I do reckon."   
  
So I lifted my hands up, Cliona on my left and Myrtle on my right, and we said silly things like _I promise never to let Cliona drink too much Butterbeer_ and _I promise never to let Minerva study too much_ and _I promise to tell Myrtle if the crushes she gets are ridiculous and sappy._ It was near midnight when we all crept into bed, each of anxious about the History of Magic exam at nine o'clock.   
  
And that, really, was the last good time we all had.  



	12. The Last Cry

**  
Eleven ~ The Last Cry**   
  
This is what happened.   
  
If you ask anyone who was there, you'll get a different account; when, years later, I discovered the pitiable specter of Myrtle haunting that bathroom, I found she had dwelled on her death so much that it had become overblown, exaggerated, and blamed mostly on Olive Hornby. And of course what I thought at the time turned out not to true; nobody really knew the truth, except by instinct, until a twelve-year-old boy called Harry Potter discovered it for us. I wish we had been better investigators.   
  
In the morning, we all trudged down the Great Hall to write the History of Magic exam. I suppose I did well enough. It turned out not to matter. We had a break after that, to eat lunch, and perhaps Myrtle or Cora or Cliona complained about doing badly, but I don't remember if that's true or not. It's probably true.   
  
We were about halfway through our meal when I spotted Olive Hornby striding down along the Gryffindor table, her pack of Ravenclaw friends behind her.   
  
"Trouble at noon," Cora remarked with a look of deep dislike on her face.   
  
"Horrible on that History of Magic exam, Markels!" Olive crowed. "Forgetting which wars were which, I'll wager – one would _think_ that those awful glasses of yours would at least help you see. It must be wretched, being both ugly and stupid."   
  
"Shut up, Hornby, or I'll make you shut up," Cliona growled.   
  
Myrtle's eyes welled up with tears, and she gave one loud torn sob before rushing out of the Great Hall.   
  
I rose to follow her.   
  
"Just leave her," Cora advised. "She'll be fine, she'll get over it in a minute. Honestly, it amazes me how much you can put up with her."   
  
"Yeah, you're a regular saint," Cliona joked, reaching for the flagon of pumpkin juice.   
  
I wish I could say I went anyway. I wish I could say that I went in straight after Myrtle and pulled her back into the corridor and held her shoulders while she cried and waited for the sobs to pass. But instead I sat and did nothing, expecting that she would be back any minute to tell us about the cute sixth-year she'd seen in the hall or other such rot, but she didn't.   
  
Perhaps five minutes passed before anyone spoke up. "D'you reckon she's okay?" Cliona asked, eyeing Myrtle's half-finished meal. "Usually an Olive Hornby insult's only about three minutes in the bathroom."   
  
"Should we go see if she's all right?" Cora asked timidly.   
  
"Yeah, come on," Cliona said with a smile. "Better get her cleaned up for the Potions OWL."   
  
We went to Myrtle's usual bathroom, the one with the great claw-footed sink, and knocked on her usual stall. "Myrtle?" I called. "Come on, we've only got fifteen minutes before Potions; maybe we can go over the Deflating Draught?"   
  
"You can't let that wretched Olive get to you," Cliona added.   
  
"Minerva, Cliona," Cora whispered. She pointed to the ground. "Look."   
  
There, on the floor in a puddle of water, were Myrtle's thick spectacles.   
  
"Myrtle?" Cliona called again, her voice taking on an urgent tone, "you in there?"   
  
"Push the stall open," Cora whispered.   
  
Slowly, with my heart hammering, I did as she asked – and then all three of us screamed at the sight of Myrtle sprawled on the bathroom floor, facedown, her skirts tangled and her shirt untucked. I don't think I stopped screaming. I knew that I should run, go find a teacher – that I could have been in danger – but I stayed fixed to the spot, staring at Myrtle and screaming.   
  
Somehow Cora was the one who composed herself enough to run back into the Great Hall and fetch the nearest professor; Cliona and I only stood there, stricken, neither of us wanting to check whether or not Myrtle was alive, neither of us wanting to look at her poor puffy face. "I don't see her breathing," Cliona said in a choke.   
  
Cora came back in with Professor Vega, the Astronomy teacher; her eyes grew wide and frightened as she took in the scene. "Girls – Miss McGonagall, you're a prefect – go and tell Professor Dumbledore to clear out the Great Hall. Tell him that there may be something dangerous about. Then tell him to come here. We'll get her to the hospital wing." She was already bent over Myrtle, her face grim.   
  
We rushed back out to do as she'd ordered; all of us too frightened to really say anything. In ten minutes all manners of rumour were flying about, from Dark wizards skulking the halls of Hogwarts to Lethifolds coming out of the walls.   
  
"Back to your dormitories!" a seventh-year prefect was screaming, his voice hoarse and fearful. "Everyone back to your dormitories immediately!"   
  
In the mass exodus from the Great Hall, Cliona saw Olive Hornby, and, before either Cora or myself could stop her, Cliona had darted up to her and punched her squarely in the face. "You always have to make fun of her!" Cliona screamed, nearly unintelligibly. "I hate you! I hate you!"   
  
Olive, who had tumbled to the floor from the force of Cliona's hit, only stared back, aided to her feet by two of her friends. I grabbed one of Cliona's arms and Cora grabbed the other and we frog-marched her back to Gryffindor Tower, where all our peers waited in a silent vigil.   
  
"It could be an attack," I heard one small boy whisper. "Muggles have finally found us and brought us into their war."   
  
We were trapped inside for the entire afternoon; out the windows, we could see the day darken into evening. Cora was sitting on one of the overstuffed chairs, her hands white on the arms of it. Cliona and I were cross-legged on the floor. Nobody spoke. The image of Myrtle's prone body on the cold bathroom floor was burned behind my eyelids.   
  
After a long while, Professor Dumbledore entered the common room and took the three of us out, not saying anything to all the other students, who all looked on with trepidation. In the corridor, in front of the Fat Lady, he spoke to us. "There is no danger to you," he said uneasily. "We don't know what attacked Miss Markels, but it seems to be gone." I looked into his eyes; though he did not look at me, I could see that he did not quite believe his own words. "But – as for Miss Markels herself—"   
  
"She's dead, isn't she?" Cora burst out.   
  
Dumbledore paused, then gave a heavy nod. "Yes. She was when you found her; she didn't suffer—"   
  
Cora and Cliona were already sobbing, hugging each other, but I only stood horrorstruck, staring at Professor Dumbledore. There is always the sense of the surreal when someone dies; there is the notion that everything was fine _just yesterday_, and the human mind has a great deal of trouble absorbing it, accepting it. I had trouble. Professor Dumbledore must have seen it on my face, for he reached and took my hand and squeezed it, and led me away from my friends.   
  
"Will there be an investigation?" I asked hollowly.   
  
"It's already under way," he replied. "We'll be sending all the students home while it goes on. Exams have been cancelled."   
  
I was angry then; Myrtle had died and he had the gall to speak of something so unimportant as _exams_, but I kept quiet about that. "Did it have anything – do you think – that message we saw on the wall?"   
  
"I don't know," he said grimly. We came to the long stairway that led down to the first floor. "Headmaster Dippet doesn't think so—"   
  
"What do _you_ think?"   
  
"I don't know, Minerva," he breathed. "I don't know."   
  
I saw them bearing her out of the hospital wing; I pulled away from Professor Dumbledore and ran.   
  
Already Myrtle had become _her_ in my mind; already the coolest parts of myself were working on distance. She was covered in a sheet, blanked out, but one hand dangled from beneath it, as though reaching out to grab at the four seventh-year Gryffindor boys who carried her solemnly. I watched that hand for a long moment, eyes half-closed. It was stiff, both waxen and white, like a doll's graceful, unmoveable hand. I wanted to touch it, to press life into it, but I stood where I was.   
  
I was dimly aware that there were two people up on the stairs, past where her ridiculously small procession had gone, and I drifted to them. I was shocked to see that they were Professor Dumbledore and Tom Riddle, having a sombre conversation, and I started up the stairs to see just what was going on when a hand clamped over my shoulder.   
  
I turned round to see Cliona there, and Cora behind her, and then two people I didn't recognize. "Minerva," Cliona said hesitantly, "these – these're Myrtle's parents. They were Flooed here; they want to talk to us."   
  
Forcing a lump down my throat, I went over to them and shook their hands in turn. They both looked very much like Myrtle, both with thick glasses and dark, springy, unruly hair, and my lips trembled as the three of us followed them outside into the evening gardens. It was gorgeous, all flowered and decked out for warm nights in summer, and I felt like a Muggle actress, on stage, playing some foreign role.   
  
"She wrote about you often," Myrtle's mum said – and it was she for her already, too. "She was so happy to have you all, you know – and we're so – so very appreciative of everything you did for our daughter."   
  
"We should never have sent her to this wretched place," Myrtle's father added. He did not look at any of us, or at his wife; he only scowled at the ground. "But – she did love it here, much more than home, much more than anything."   
  
Cora and Cliona could only stare at them, white-faced. I had to be the one to talk. "Mr. Markels – Mrs. Markels – I'm so terribly sorry."   
  
"Oh, dear," Mrs. Markels said. "It's not – it's not—"   
  
I stepped up to her and took her hand. I was never good at comforting people with actions, and my hand felt heavy and awkward in hers, but I could use words. "I don't think I know how you feel – I couldn't know – but I won't ever forget her."   
  
Myrtle's mum burst into tears then, and we all stood there in quiet tableau, interspersed only by a mother's tears. I could feel, not see, Cliona and Cora edging uncomfortably behind me. "I – I'm sorry," Mrs. Markels said after perhaps fifteen minutes of crying. "I thought I could talk – I want to understand why – I want to know your people."   
  
"You can find us another time, ma'am," Cliona said respectfully.   
  
"Any other time," Cora added.   
  
We began to walk away.   
  
"Minerva, was it?" Myrtle's mother asked.   
  
I stopped. Cliona and Cora kept going. "Yes, Minerva."   
  
"You're – one of us, I hear. Or your parents are."   
  
"Yes."   
  
"Do you mind if I ask you something?"   
  
"Go ahead."   
  
"Why did you come here? I mean, instead of going to normal school."   
  
"I – I love it here." And suddenly those words rang false in my mouth; they tasted like bile and rot, and I felt as though I were drowning. "I love it here," I said it again, and it tasted the same. I closed my eyes; lowered my head. I could feel their eyes on me.   
  
"Well," said Myrtle's father, coughing and placing a hand on his wife's shoulder, "they'll have gotten her ready to go by now." They both rose from their white little flower-bench and went together, back to their odd, dead daughter.   
  
It took me a while to summon up the courage to go back, so I sat alone in the garden for a while, watching the grey ribbons of cloud spiral across the sky; I was again taken in by how unbelievable everything was. When bad things happen, life becomes a series of what-if and if-only. What if Olive had never been so cruel? If only I had gone after Myrtle right away.   
  
When I finally made myself go back into the school, there was a different sort of frenzy. All of the students had been let out, but not all of them were leaving; one prefect – the same one from before – was running around announced that Hogwarts was not closing, after all. I spotted Cora among the fray and rushed up to her. "What's happening?"   
  
"Nobody knows," she said, her voice very small. "They say who – whoever did it has been caught. And Hagrid's been expelled, too."   
  
"Hagrid?"   
  
"It can't have been him – it must be something else," Cora said emphatically.   
  
There was only one person who had the power to get Hagrid expelled, and suddenly all the fear and anger and frustration I had been feeling focused itself on one person – and saw his tall head poking out among the others. Tom Riddle.   
  
I dashed after him. "Riddle!" I yelled.   
  
He looked over his shoulder at me, then looked back and kept moving away.   
  
I forced him around, made him look at me. He looked as though he himself had been through a lot; he was messy and pale, but, revoltingly, his lips were curled into a cruel mockery of a smile. "Why would you do this now?" I said through clenched teeth. "As though the school hasn't been pained enough, Riddle – why would you hurt Hagrid now, when we're already grieving for someone else?"   
  
"Are you daft, McGonagall?" Riddle snarled. "That spider he's got hidden in there – that's the one who killed her." He jerked his head to where Myrtle's body had been taken out, the foot of the west stairway.   
  
My jaw fell open; the world seemed to expand and contract. Riddle made as if to say something else to me, but by then I had already turned on my heel and was running up to Hagrid's little hiding-place.   
  
He was there, sitting on the crate where Aragog had been, crying quietly. I couldn't bring myself to greet him, so I stood and waited, half-ducked below the low door, until he looked and saw me waiting.   
  
"Miss Minerva," he said.   
  
I didn't respond.   
  
"They took 'im away and expelled me. Snapped my wand in two."   
  
I still didn't respond. My mouth felt sewn shut.   
  
"He was afraid," Hagrid said, sitting down on the empty crate, stroking its side with one enormous hand. "He wanted to leave; he said somethin' was scarin' him in this castle, somethin' he'd been born to fear. But – I – I convinced 'im to stay."   
  
"The Acromantula?" I said in a strangled voice. "You _made_ it stay in Hogwarts?"   
  
"There weren't nothin' to be afraid of," Hagrid moaned. He was a great lurking shadow, bent over, as though praying. "I swear, Miss Minerva – it can't have been 'im."   
  
"It was!" I shrieked. "Dippet's expelled you, Hagrid! How can you be so blind? This wasn't any accident! It was you – it was you being too thick and too wrapped up in your pets to realize that they can _hurt_ people! Acromantulas are rare! They've not been studied enough! No one knows if they're gentle or not!"   
  
"Miss Minerva—"   
  
"I can't talk to you anymore, Hagrid. Not now – maybe not ever." I gritted my teeth. "It's not like you'll be _here_ to talk to, anyhow."   
  
A look of deep hurt crossed his face. I thought a hundred things then, all of them wrong, and, in that moment, I hated Rubeus Hagrid. Hated him for his sweet clueless sympathy, hated him for his great gentle eyes and simple smile, hated him for the way I had actually liked him. I choked back another shout and whirled out of the room. I couldn't be angry with him, I couldn't blame him, and yet I could in the same moment; I didn't know how to feel, only that something inexplicably and mysteriously not right.   
  
The Gryffindor common room was empty when I returned; some students had scattered home in fear, some had gone to bed, others were still in the Great Hall, shocked and bewildered. I slammed myself down on my bed, not crying, trying not feel anything. I remember that more than anything else I wanted Kitty to be there to lie beside me and tell me things would turn out fine. I half-buried my head into my pillow – and my eyes fell on Snappers. I had forgotten the little plant, and it uncurled itself to greet me, as it always had.   
  
Instead of reaching out to touch it, like I normally did, I stared at it for a long moment, then swept it up within the folds of my robes and went scurrying out of my dormitory, out of the common room, out of Hogwarts. It was night by them, cloudy and starless and hot, and I ran half-breathless to the edge of the Forbidden Forest, concentrating on the rhythms of my breathing so I wouldn't have to concentrate on anything else.   
  
There was no sound but the wind. I plunked Snappers on the ground beside me, then I sat down and leaned forward and started to dig in the dirt, bare-handed; my fingernails cracked and filled with mud, but I kept on until I had a hole big enough. Then I yanked Snappers from its pot and shoved it back into the earth. I threw the pot into the forest and piled dirt around my unusual pet, replanting it, putting it back where it belonged.   
  
Snappers looked at me – well, if it had eyes, it would have looked at me. It inclined its large mouth-head towards the sound of my voice, its stalk bent, as though leaning down, dejected. "Don't do that," I whispered, patting the dirt around his roots. "I can't look at you. I like you, I really do like you, but I remember where you came from – who you came from – and that you're not allowed in the school, really. I know you aren't dangerous, but rules are rules, and that's something everybody should learn."   
  
Snappers bent down further, so that its head touched the dirt.   
  
"Grass will grow here," I said quietly. I wiped my muddy hands on my robe. "Grass will grow here, and nurture you, and I will come see you – after I've had some time – and I'll bring you things. Food."   
  
I rose slightly, so I was kneeling, and Snappers suddenly laid its head across my palm, as if silently forgiving me. The fine hairs on its plant-skin tickled; it was so wonderfully and horribly tactile, so precise and _sensory_, and I thought of Myrtle's cold, unresponsive, inhuman flesh, and I could bear no more silence. I lowered my head and wept, down in the dirt, face red and blotchy, hair unbound and careless, robes askew, with nothing but a quiet plant for comfort. It was dark; all the Hogwarts lights were out. I put my fist in my mouth, dirt and all, tasting earth and skin, muffling my voice so that no one would hear me.   
  



	13. Summer Alone

  
**Twelve ~ Summer Alone**   
  
By morning half the student body was gone; by afternoon, it was three-quarters. I spent the better part of the day listless and in bed, not really talking to anyone, drifting in and out of an uneasy sleep. Cora left at around supper; Cliona left later in the evening. Both of them said very little as a goodbye for the summer, but there were really no words necessary. We could each see our separate feelings of grief mirrored in one another's eyes.   
  
By midnight, I was the only person left in Gryffindor Tower, exempt from the outflow of frightened students. I was running a fever at that point. I still hadn't gotten out of bed. I hadn't eaten since Myrtle had been alive. I slipped in and out of dreaming; I dreamed that Myrtle was perched on the edge of my bed, and she was happy, over some trifle like a new barrette or a good grade, and she smiled like white holy diamonds and I was blinded and overjoyed, and then I knew it was fake and had to weep in my pillow all over again. I dreamed other things, cycling away from wakefulness, of Kitty and Christmas, of being in Hogsmeade and laughing; I dreamed that I wasn't a tabby as an Animagus but instead a great murderous Chimaera, terrorizing the corridors of Hogwarts, and I didn't know how to force the beastly side to defer to the human side, and there was nothing but destruction as the human part of me wailed helplessly. I dreamed those things and hundred others.   
  
To this day, I do not know how I ended up in the infirmary. Perhaps some well-meaning house-elf found me when entering the dormitory to make the beds; perhaps one of the paintings witnessed everything and went dashing off to find someone. When I awoke I was alone in a different bed, blankets and quilts all tucked around me. There was a pitcher of water on the bedside table, but no other sign that someone had been there to tend to me, and I felt oddly chilled and out-of-place. "Hello?" I called.   
  
There was no answer, but at that time it was probably four in the morning. I lay back. For a moment I considered the water, but I suspected that I wouldn't be able to keep it down. Instead, I remained motionless, staring up at a ceiling I couldn't see. I was marginally more lucid, and I found that more than anything – more than grief, even – I felt this horrible, intolerable loneliness there in the dark, the sort that pits into your stomach and won't quite dislodge itself.   
  
I suppose, looking back, that I had then come to realize that the magical world with which I was so enamoured was not always a place of wonder and light. Certainly I had heard of wizarding atrocities before – and my knowledge of Grindelwald definitely erased any idea I might have had that all witches and wizards were good – but nothing had yet become so _personal_. Before then, the wizarding world had been like journeying through a dream itself, and it had seemed a place where it was impossible to get hurt. I suppose I was disillusioned.   
  
In the late morning, Professor Dumbledore came to visit me, silently bearing gifts. I glanced at the offerings – flowers and a book called _Memoirs of an Animagus_ – and forced out a smile. "Please, sit down," I said, indicating the edge of the bed as I slid up in a sitting position.   
  
"You're staying here for the summer, I assume."   
  
"I'm not old enough to Apparate to my family, am I?" I snapped, feeling a new burst of loneliness, and then I was instantly sorry, but he seemed not to care, letting my harshness wash over him. He was always good at that – taking in the anger of students. "I'm stuck here."   
  
"You once thought of this place as the best in the world."   
  
I buried my face in my hands. "I still do, Professor – it's only – only—"   
  
"I know," he said quietly.   
  
"When I was a child, my mum and dad would take my sister and I to church. And I believed then that whenever anyone died, they'd go to heaven, and the only reason that the people behind had to grieve was for themselves, for what they'd miss in that person – because the person who actually died would be just unbelievably happy. It's funny, what people think to make themselves feel better. And I reckon I don't believe that much anymore – not the way I did, anyhow – but what do born-and-bred wizards think?"   
  
"We don't know. There's no one thing we agree on, just like Muggles."   
  
"What do _you_ think, then?"   
  
"I think that when I die, Miss McGonagall, I will be able to choose what I want to do. I hope." He looked down at his hands. "And I think you ought not to quit believing in heaven."   
  
"Do you? Believe in it, I mean."   
  
"Yes."   
  
For a long while, we simply sat there, neither wanting to break the stilted silence. After I realised that he was waiting for me, I looked up and swallowed a lump in my throat. "So Hagrid's gone for good?"   
  
Dumbledore nodded. "Dippet demanded it. I lobbied to have him stay here, but no one else would allow it." He sighed and stroked his beard. "Perhaps I'm a sentimental old man to think it."   
  
"His negligence directly resulted in someone's death," I said hotly, pushing down the small voice in my mind that reminded me of how I'd allowed Hagrid's creatures to go unchecked.   
  
"Indeed, Miss McGonagall, but you must understand that not everything in this world is black-and-white." His eyes were very troubled. "Not everything can be rationalized in the same manner—" He cut himself off. "I apologize – I should not speak like this to you, not when you are grieving."   
  
"But you think Headmaster Dippet is wrong about something. I can tell."   
  
"Miss McGonagall—"   
  
"D'you think it might not have been Hagrid?"   
  
Dumbledore shook his head. "No, Miss McGonagall. Dippet has done his job well. I am simply too much of a skeptic."   
  
I watched him at length, probing his eyes, and I could tell that simultaneously he was not telling me something and that he felt it would be insensitive to push the issue further. I let it drop for the moment. "Have you heard anything from the Ministry, then?"   
  
He looked up in surprise. "No. I'll tell you as soon as they contact me." He leaned forward and patted me on the shoulder; it reminded me strongly of my mother. "Get well, Miss McGonagall," he said, by way of goodbye.   
  
When he was out of sight, I looked at the flowers. They were bluebells – a careful touch, the home flower of Scotland – and quite beautiful, but they reminded me so strongly of when I had spent the day in the Hospital Wing after fainting from my first transformation, when my friends and Hagrid had visited. I would have given anything, I think, to be back then. I rolled over so I wouldn't have to look at the bouquet and twisted my pillow around my head.   
  
I was dismissed from the Hospital Wing a day and half later. I was not invited to Myrtle's funeral. Her parents had made it a Muggle funeral; they'd wanted to sever any connections their dead daughter might have had with our world, and I cannot say I faulted them for it. I was glad, too. I had never been to anyone's funeral except that of my dead aunt Mary, and though her old wrinkled plastic face had frightened me a child, it hadn't hurt my heart as I knew Myrtle's would. It was better to stay away.   
  
I spent the next few weeks alone, reading, practicing my transformations over and over again – burying myself in study. Most of the time I ate in Gryffindor Tower; the house-elves were more than obliging, and I didn't like the professors looking at me. Professor Vega with her sad, sympathetic eyes, Caldecott with his stern mouth and soft questions – I didn't particularly want to see people. The weather grew warm and summery but I couldn't bring myself to go outside and enjoy it. It seemed that everything I did reminded of something Myrtle would never again get to do, whether it was eating breakfast or reading a book or even taking school-notes.   
  
It was the middle of July before I could face walking past the bathroom where Myrtle had died – it was on the shortest route to the library, and for a month I had been taking the long way around, past that wretched knight painting who shouted at me each time I strode past. When I first dared to, I was met with a surprising sight.   
  
Riddle was standing at the door of the girls' lavatory, looking as though he'd swallowed something poisonous. I tried to hurry past without him seeing me, but there was very little that escaped him. "Still angry with me, McGonagall?" he asked my retreating form, his voice rich with dislike.   
  
I stopped then, and whirled around. "Do you want me to tell you that you were right, and beg your forgiveness?" I hissed. "Well, too bad. I loathe you. You obviously can't ever stop being a prat."   
  
"_You_ obviously cannot see past the end of your nose."   
  
"I bet you're feeling extra superior, right, Riddle? I hear they gave you an award. Special Service to the School. I bet you're thinking how great that'll look on your record once you get out of here. You're probably happy. Everything looks good on you." Viciousness was bubbling up inside me. "You're forgetting that someone actually died, you bastard! Right in that bathroom! I wish it had been you!"   
  
"McGonagall—"   
  
"Go to hell. I _know_ you were blackmailing Hagrid somehow. Why did you do it, Riddle?" I answered myself. "I bet it was just because you like to feel powerful. You like to feel as though you can control people. It's sickening."   
  
To my credit, he looked taken aback for a moment. I knew – or _thought_ I knew, at fifteen – that he had done the right thing, but I despised him for it, despised him because I thought he had been correct and because he was still a hateful Slytherin. "Why do you say that?"   
  
I ignored the question. "I wonder how the Headmaster will feel about a prefect of this school blackmailing another student."   
  
"The other student was a murderer," he said coolly.   
  
"You're party to murder if you knew he was keeping a dangerous creature and did nothing about it," I said in a small voice. The words echoed in my ears; I was accusing myself as well as Riddle, but I pressed on anyway. "Heroic Riddle! Discovering the monsters' lair right afterwards! What a convenient find! What a clever little snake!"   
  
"You won't say anything."   
  
"Don't threaten me."   
  
"I'm not, McGonagall," he said earnestly. His voice was still unbelievably collected. "But you are understandably upset over the loss of your friend – and that great giant was one of yours, too. Yes, I knew that Rubeus Hagrid was keeping those creatures there, but you know how difficult is it to keep him apart from his precious beasts.   
  
I closed my eyes, hating him for being right, hating him for knowing exactly why I myself had failed to turn Hagrid in earlier. In order to keep from lunging forward and wringing his neck, I gave him a curt nod and continued walking away.   
  
"McGonagall – wait."   
  
"What?"   
  
"Listen – I don't want to spend the summer in Hogwarts with you hating me. I don't care for having angry glares shot in my direction, nor do I care for childish name-calling or foolish accusations." There was something inestimably cold in the timbre of his voice, even though his words were a cruel version of a peace treaty. I couldn't look at his eyes; irrationally, I felt that it would be dangerous to do so. "I suppose we should work on avoiding one another."   
  
"I couldn't agree more. We'll begin right now." With that, I stalked off. We were successful in keeping out of one another's way. I suppose he kept to the Slytherin dormitories. I didn't see him again until nearly the end of August, when we had both cooled off a little – but, again, I get ahead of myself.   
  
I imagine, then, that my heart began to heal. I read once that the most painful thing for anyone to experience is great and sudden change, and that I had already been through. It wasn't as though I ceased to be alone, but I did grow _used_ to it, and soon enough the hollowed-out part of my insides that ached whenever I thought of Myrtle or my family became as much a piece of me as my eyes or hands. I remember thinking that growing up meant feeling alone all the time.   
  
I began an uneasy correspondence with Cliona and Cora. Our letters held a false cheerfulness, with our grieving conspicuously absent. _I'm having a lovely time visiting Italy!_ or _I've got to buy my sixth-year books! Do you think we ought to meet up in Diagon Alley?_ Kitty's letters were more sombre, but I didn't tell her anything that had happened with Myrtle, and her writing was equally vague: _The schools are odd here. Our house is in the city. I hope the farm is okay without us._   
  
Things continued in this manner until the middle of August. I was sitting at my usual table in the library, reading but not really paying attention, and Professor Dumbledore swept in, his eyes falling on me. The rest of the library was deserted – it was a gorgeous day, with the sun streaming in through the high windows, and even the librarian had gone outside to finish some of her clerical work.   
  
"Professor?" I asked, closing my book. "What is it?"   
  
He was looking very worried. "Miss McGonagall, I need you to go to your dormitory and get dressed to go into London."   
  
"What? Why?"   
  
"Julius Applethorne has requested a meeting with you."   
  



End file.
